


You don't have to stay here, but you can't go home

by MilkyMint



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Everyone is a different flavor of repressed and we're slowly working through it, M/M, Slow Burn, akward social interactions, alternative season1, defrost setting on the microwave
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-01
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilkyMint/pseuds/MilkyMint
Summary: Martin moves into the Archives.After a close encounter with Jane Prentiss of his own, so does Jon.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 102
Kudos: 405





	1. Chapter 1

The tape clicks off, and the absence of the recorder’s whirring fills the room. It is odd how this little outdated piece of technology marks the difference between important and trivial, official and informal, fake ghost stories and real encounters. 

Jon stares down at it, but doesn’t really see.

He'd been vaguely aware that at some point, they'd have to deal with Prentiss, if only because no one else seemed to be taking the threat seriously. 

But he had hoped that the actual involvement of the Magnus Institute would be confined to a phone call to the ECDC, maybe get Elias to pull some strings to make sure they are prepared. He hadn't expected him or his staff to get directly involved.

"Jon?" 

Jon focuses back on Martin, who is just sitting there looking embarrassed, exhausted, and somewhat grimey.

"Right. I'll show you where you can sleep before I talk to Elias."

The storage room is right of the big open entry space into the archives, where the assistants have managed to unearth three desks out from their burial mounds under piles and piles of lose statements, random notes, and overdue library books.

Jon prefers to keep the door locked, to prevent spillover from what he has come to think of as 'the big mess'. If they can't keep that contained, they might as well not bother.

It's not a small room, but it is narrow, almost more of a corridor, and the utilitarian metal shelves that line the walls aren’t exactly inviting. They are stuffed with boxes and lose files, except for the bottom rows.The filing system of a person to frail and withered to bend down for documents all the time. Also the filing system of a person with no regard for any form of coherency. 

None of the boxes are labeled, and if there is a system behind the coloured tape on the back of some, but not all, of the files, Jon hasn’t decrypted it yet. He needs to hone his skill first, maybe tackle the Voynich manuscript as a warm up.

Martin stops in the doorway, stares at the rows and rows of files with a mix of awe and horror. “Woah. Have we looked into these at all? Are they important?”

“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Jon sighs, as he pulls the camping bed from its nook between shelves. 

“But they are even more eclectic than in the offices, which I wouldn't have thought possible. I want to get a filing system established before we start moving them, which is why I keep the door locked, so please do not touch anything.”

The guilty silence tells him that yes, Martin of course was about to just pull out files and start browsing.

The cot is surprisingly comfy, and Jon suspects that Gertrude Robinson brought it in here for mid day naps. It certainly would explain her lack of productivity. 

He snaps the safety latches into place with more force than necessary and gives the bed a shake for good measure. 

His frustration isn't just at the prospect at having to either home every night, or sleep at his desk again. Or due to another person encountering Prentiss, and of all the people in London, it had to be Martin. 

And Martin really went above and beyond to bring this on himself. 

Jon pulls the pillow and blanket out of the empty casefile box where he, not hides, he’s got nothing to hide, _stores_ them, throws them on the bed, and stuffs the small digital alarm clock he brought in case his phone ever died on him between some files.

It's not like Jon ordered Martin to go to Vittery's house after all. He can hardly be held responsible for what his assistants get up to in their spare time. 

"The alarm is off," he says, mostly to drown out the sound of his conscience, which is playing 'proof for you' on repeat. 

"But if you want to set it, the manual is in the box, and there's-" 

"Jon," Martin interrupts and when Jon faces him he's just sitting on the bed, head in hands. 

"Thank you, really, but I'm just so, so done. I just want to sleep. I'll figure all the other stuff out later. When I can actually think." 

He looks l tired, like - exactly like he hasn't slept for two weeks. 

Jon is used to being the most tired person in the room at any given point, and seeing the normally aggressively cheerful man looking exhausted feels off. Like the wrong puzzle piece has been crammed into place by force. 

"Right, sorry. I'll leave you to it." 

Martin just nods and slides down on the bed, and Jon makes his way to the door, but pauses and turns, with his hand on the handle. 

"I'm -" he starts, but Martin is already out cold. Jon leaves the lights on, and closes the door behind him as quietly as he can. He gives himself five seconds of leaning against the door and breathing deeply.

Right. Action. 

First of all, call Sasha and Tim. Warn them about the worms, ask if they can come in on a Saturday, while also keeping them from bothering Martin for the next eight to twelve hours.

Call the ECDC, don't mention that he's from the Magnus Institute, or they won't take him seriously.

Inform Elias of the situation, if possible without admitting to using the camping bed before. What Elias doesn't know can't be written up as technically trespassing. 

Stock up on microwave meals and tea for the break room. Stock up on fruit for the break room, because Jon has done the instant ramen diet, but Martin is what, in his mid thirties? If he keeps eating like that he'll probably die of utterly mundane causes. 

Get a proper sleepover kit ready, although he should outsource that to Tim. Tim goes hiking, he'd know what to bring.

Just keep busy, keep moving, get things done, and maybe at some point the guilt will stop. 

Not that he has anything to feel guilty about.

*

For a good five seconds after waking up, Martin is sure that he's having a nightmare. 

The Files are surrounding him, crowding every corner of the room, mocking him with their incomprehensible numbering system, and odd academic abbreviations he’ll have to google as covertly as possible.

His eyes land on the alarm clock, which, if he really was having a nightmare would have woken him up with the sound of worms hammering on his door.

Instead it just quietly informs him that he’s slept for a good sixteen hours, through all of Saturday and a good chunk of Sunday. 

Quick worm check, all clear.

He is feeling a lot more coherent than he has in the last two weeks. Sure, he’s been wearing the same clothes for a week, and he’s sore from running all the way to the institute, but- Christ, did he really do that? The power of sleep deprivation and blood curdling terror is truly amazing.

His statement is probably a jumbled mess, but if it was convincing enough for Jonathan ‘People die from suffocating on spiderwebs all the time’ Sims, then he must have expressed something right. Unless letting him sleep in the Archives was just a ploy so Jon could call security to remove the raving madman. But that would have taken less than sixteen hours. Which means, for the moment, he’s probably safe.

Still, Martin approaches the door slowly, and peers through the small window. 

No worms, no security, no police. Just the usual mess of filing cabinets, cardboard boxes, cluttered desks, and… Tim and Sasha in front of the white board that they installed there on their first week. 

They turn once he opens the door, and for a second he’s terrified that their faces will be honeycombed through with holes.

But they are okay, perfectly normal, and the only thing on their faces is concern, as they rush over. 

"Jon told us what happened, how are you?" Sasha asks.

"Fine," Martin says automatically. "Well, not fine, obviously. I'm better, I guess. Slept for a day, that helped. Still a bit tired and lost. But why are you here on a Sunday? Wait, you didn't have to sleep here too, right? 

They exchange a glance before Sasha says:

"No, but we think Jon did. He was here when I left yesterday-" 

"And there when I got in this morning," Tim adds, as he cranes around Martin to see inside the room. "Probably slept at his desk, for old times sake. I didn't know he set up a proper airbnb back here, I thought he just found a good chair to nap in. He’s still searching for Prentiss’s statement. Don’t think he’s found anything yet. We came in yesterday for a briefing, but you were asleep." 

“And what are you doing now?” Martin asks, with a look at the whiteboard. The usual chart of tasks to do and who is going where is covered up by a Map of London tacked onto the board with fruit-shaped fridge magnets. There’s a couple spots marked with thick red circles, one of them Martin recognizes as his address.

Sasha taps her chin thoughtfully.

“Known sightings of Jane Prentiss, or infected victims. Your flat is the most recent one, so we’ve been making a few calls to your neighbours, hospitals, and police stations in the area, but there hasn’t been any report of Prentiss, parasites, or anything particularly spooky.”

She turns back to Martin, and look at him with appearant unease.

"Martin, we really didn't know anything was wrong, or we would have done something. But Jon said you had some stomach bug, and I figured you didn't want anyone around while you're sick."

That's pretty much what Martin had told himself, while he was hauled up in his room. 

And it's fine. They’re work friends, after all. And the worms called in sick, so there was no reason for his work friends to worry. 

He tried not to dwell on the fact that apparently he doesn’t have any non-work friends who'll check up on him if he drops off the face of the planet for two weeks.

"No, no, I really don't when I'm actually sick. Runs in the family. And, I mean, if it was you, my first thought wouldn't have been 'Well obviously Sasha had her identity stolen by worms'. What kind of paranoid life would that be?" 

Sasha forces a smile.

“Alright then. And hey, we got you the stuff from your list. But you’re not actually planning to move in here, are you?"

"I don’t know, I didn’t really plan on anything yet. Wait, what list? "

"The to do list." Sasha hands him a sheet of Institute stationary from the desk. It’s a carefully laid out list, complete with neat little checkboxes. One side 'Do', with various numbers to call, the other labeled 'Get' listing

toothbrush, toothpaste, fruit ('no peaches!', underlined twice), body wash, shampoo… 

It looks like a checklist for a primary school field trip, and Martin is still a bit groggy and disoriented, but he’s pretty sure he didn’t write it. 

Tim points at a gym bag next to the door to the storage room.

"It's all in there. Well, the food is in the break room, but the rest is. And I went shopping. Just a couple sweatpants and t-shirts, figured you could use a change of clothes. If you want us to pick anything up from your apartment, just say the word."

"What?! No, don't do that! What if the worms are back? "

“I ain't afraid of no worms." 

Martin starts laughing, tries to at least, but somehow the chuckles turn into sobs. 

"Hey, do you want a hug?" Tim asks, and Martin manages to nod. 

Tim is, unsurprisingly, extremely good at hugging. He pulls Martin in without any hesitation, and wraps both arms around him, one hand up against the back of Martin's head, holds him firm, but gentle.

Sasha is a lot more tentative, but her awkward pat on the back is still grounding. 

It still takes Martin an embarrassingly long time to stop sobbing into Tim's shoulder and when he finally extradicts himself, his voice is more of a croak.

"Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm okay. Thank you." 

"Any time. Let us know if you need anything else." 

"Actually, uhm, could you get me a coffee? I could really use a caffeine shock.”

Tim actually beams.

"I can totally do that. Doing that right now!"

“I’ll be back in the library,” Sasha says. “I want to check the police ticker, and the wifi here is just atrocious.”

Tim gives Martin's shoulder one more reassuring squeeze, and they leave together, almost slamming the door into Jon’s face on the way out of the Archives.

"Wow, sorry. Have you been lurking out here?" 

"Don't be ridiculous, I just got here. You should really be more carefull opening doors."

Tim rolls his eyes behind Jon's back, and closes the door with exaggerated care. 

Martin furiously wipes the last tears from his face, the last thing he needs is to break down in front of his boss.

"Sorry about this," he says and makes a vague gesture mainly towards his face, but also towards his whole being. Martin has always been an ugly crier. 

"Don't know why this is happening now, when it's safe. Guess I'm just a - "

"That's perfectly normal. You've been through a traumatic ordeal, you've got adrenaline running high, and now that you feel safe, your terror is catching up." 

Jon is speaking in full academic lecture mode, but he too is looking a little worse for wear.

"That said, if you do want to talk about it with someone, I can," Jon starts and Martin says:"Oh God no" right as Jon finishes with: "recommend some therapists."

They stand in a very awkward silence for a moment, until Jon clears his throat. 

"I talked to Elias, we're getting the extra security. And he agreed to count the last two weeks as paid overtime." 

Martin's chuckle comes out a bit more cynical than he's feeling, but at least it's not another crying fit. Figures that the best way to get some extra money out of his job was to just go out and put himself in mortal peril. Should have done it ages ago.

"And he's fine with me staying here?" 

"Honestly, I didn't ask. I just stated it as fact and he didn't object, and that's good enough for me." 

"Thank you." 

"Think nothing of it. Next point: I went through some statements last night. I had hoped to find Prentiss's, but no luck so far. But those statements brought up a few follow up tasks I'd like you to do. Just calling people, confirming a few dates, any additional information you can get."

The conversation has taken a sharp turn that Martin didn't expect, for more than one reason. 

"Are you sure? You weren't exactly happy with my last interviews, something about ‘wasting time with trivial nonsense’." 

That's a very charitable edit of the actual tirade Jon went on last month, which Martin chose to think he wasn't supposed to overhear. And maybe it's wishful thinking, but Jon does look caught off guard for just a moment before he speaks again. 

"You need to focus more on relevant facts, and less on whatever tangent the subject wants to go on, even if you find it interesti-" Jon cuts himself off and looks almost embarrassed. 

"What I meant to say is: These are tasks I'd like to get done, but it's nothing urgent. If you are feeling up to it, they'll be a good start to get you back into work.

I imagine you've had enough of just sitting around. I know I would." 

Jon brings his arms up front, and for one terrifying moment Martin thinks he's going for a hug, and that would be so absurd it might actually break him.

But Jon holds out a keyring.

"The small one is for this room, the big one is for the main door of the bathroom, in case you want to use the emergency shower there. As long as you shower outside office hours, you shouldn't bother anyone. But you might feel safer with the option to lock up."

Martin takes the keyring almost mechanically, and Jon immediately shoves his hands in his pockets, and then just stands there, looking tense, and looking uncomfortable, and looking at anything in the room but Martin.

It’s very strange behaviour from someone who usually has no problems with conflict, especially not when in conflict with Martin. 

Then it finally clicks. 

Jon is trying to be nice to him. Sure, he's not good at it, and he looks like he'd rather be pulling out his own teeth, but Martin wouldn't be Martin if he didn't find the attempt endearing. 

"Okay. I'll take a shower, get some food, and then I'll get to work."

"Good. I’ll, uhm, I’ll see you later."

Sprinting away from an uncomfortable social situation would be unbecoming of the head archivist of the Magnus Institute, but Jon manages a pretty close likeness.

*

By eight, even Jon has to admit that he’s simply too tired to do anything productive and calls it a night.

He can’t just stay in the Archives overnight anymore, thank you Martin, so he makes his way home through the cold, brooding about what to do next as he lets his feet do the walking.

They haven’t found any signs of Prentiss throughout the city, and he doesn’t feel like blindly combing through random basements.

By the time he reaches his building, he’s convinced himself that the only thing to do is wait, and continue going through the archived statements.

The light in the staircase is still out, he really has to call someone next time he has a spare minute during business hours. But since he hasn’t managed to do so in the last month, maybe it’s not that important.

The Prentiss Statement is somewhere in the mess that is the Magnus Archives. He knows it is. But finding it is going to take a lot of time, unless- the keys catch on a loose thread on his coat and fall to the ground with a clatter. Jon curses softly, bends to pick them up, and freezes as he sees the sickly white worm squirming on his doormat. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand that's the catch up all done. Next chapter we're getting into proper divergence.  
> Fun Fact, I learned today that Season 5 drops a month earlier than I thought, so I'll try my best to get this soft baby out before that. We're gonna need it.


	2. Chapter 2

The storage room isn’t so bad, Martin decides. And if he keeps repeating that to himself, eventually he will believe it. Sure, it smells musty and the neon lights aren’t exactly atmospheric, but there are ways to work around that.  
Like the ‘borrowed’ reading lamp from the library, and the nightlight that somehow made its way into the lost and found box, and was probably feeling very lonely among all the pens and reading glasses.  
Martin doesn't think he'll actually use it, the dark is one of the few things he's not afraid of, and the design is a bit too cutesy for his taste. But the little white blob with it's dotted eyes looks friendly enough, and it is nice to have something casual in the room.  
He considers it for a moment and then slightly moves its placement on the shelf, before taking a step back to judge the overall effect.

"Looks good," Tim says, and hands Martin a lukewarm beer. He volunteered to stay over for the night, both for moral support and to help setting the place up into something at least close to a living space.  
Aside from their raid on the library, they also found a spare waste bin, and managed to move a shelf into the middle of the room, so the bed is flush to the wall, with no more danger of him accidentally sweating on some precious files.  
"Thank you. I just hope Jon doesn't get conniptions over us moving unsorted files around."  
"Aw, come on, he's not that bad."  
Martin's reply is interrupted by the sound of footsteps. Whoever is coming is walking with anger, and Martin looks at Tim in horror.  
"He knows."  
It really is Jon who pulls the door to the office open, but he looks less angry and more…shocked. He stares at them as if he'd forgotten that Martin at least is supposed to be here, and he doesn't seem to notice the casefile box they used to prop the door to the storage room open, or the six-pack that Martin quickly nudges under the bed with his foot.  
"Jon, what's wrong?" Tim asks, already halfway out the room.  
“Prentiss,” Jon answers, without really looking at them. “At my place.”  
“Oh god, are you okay? Did she get you?”  
“No.” Jon waves his hands at them, dismissing the question and showing his worm free hands, before he leaves them standing there and hurries into his office.  
They follow, but stop in the doorway. Jon is already sitting behind his desk, and Martin feels like he is looking at a composite photograph of every time he’s interrupted whatever important head archivist business Jon gets up to in there.  
Jon for his part doesn’t pay them any mind, he pulls a tape recorder from a drawer and sets it up on the desk.  
Once the recorder is whirring away, Jon seems calmer, more collected. He takes one deep breath and starts speaking.  
“Statement of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, regarding his Encounter with Jane Prentiss. Recorded direct from subject, night of March 13th, 2016. Statement begins.  
There was no reason to suspect that Jane Prentiss would make another appearance so soon after her encounter with Martin Blackwood, reference Statement March 12th, 2016.  
So when I left the Institute that night, tonight, I thought about a lot of things, but I didn't pay as much attention to my surroundings as I should have. I guess in the end, what saved me was plain dumb luck.  
I dropped my keys, right in front of my door, and when I went to pick them up I noticed that there was something moving on my doormat. So far every witness, including statement givers as well as hospital staff, called the parasites of Prentiss ‘worms’, but I think ‘larvae’ might be more accurate. The thing on my doorstep definitely seemed more maggot than earthworm, but I’ll have to consult with an biologist to be sure.  
Whatever it’s nomenclature, the thing was writhing blindly, and didn’t seem to have noticed me yet.  
And then there was that noise. I don’t know if I simply hadn't noticed before, or if she’d been silently standing there the entire time, and I don’t know which option frightens me more.  
But suddenly I could hear ragged, wet breathing. Like what you would expect from someone who drowned and coughed up lungfuls of water.  
When I turned my head, careful to keep on eye on the worm in front of me, I could see a humanoid figure standing at the end of the hallway. The light from a passing car shone through the window behind her, and maybe it was the light, or maybe she realised I’d seen her, but that’s when she started moving towards me.”

"So then you ran?" Martin asks, anxiously.  
Jon’s head snaps up, and for a moment he looks startled, like he completely forgot he wasn’t alone in the room.  
“Of course I ran,” Jon mutters. ”I’m not an idiot.”  
“Right, good, but shouldn’t we call-”  
“Already did. But they won't find anything." Jon gives a mirth less little laugh. "She’s good at getting away, isn’t she?”  
"Then why did you come here?" Tim asks. “Why not wait it out with the hazmat guys?”  
“Because-”  
Jon gestures around the room, suddenly looks uncertain of what he’s trying to say.  
“Because we already have the most extensive records on her movements, and I need to leave a- To log my-”  
Finally notices that the tape recorder is still running and turns it off with a: “Recording ends.”  
He pushes past Tim and Martin and walks to the map tacked to the whiteboard, and after a moment of contemplation adds another circle.

"What I want to know," he says slowly, staring at the map, the manic energy completely gone "is how Jane goddamn Prentiss knows where I live."  
“Oh no,” Martin whispers before he can stop himself.  
The others turn to him, and Jon fixates on him in that horrible calm way he does before things get really ugly.  
"Martin."  
"Listen, I didn't- I couldn't have known!" Martin tries to back away, but quickly finds his way blocked by a wall of file boxes.  
"Martin, what did you do?"  
Martin is covering his eyes with his hands, desperation triggering an old childhood instinct. If I can't see them, they can't see me. But he’s not getting away. Better just come clean.  
"I might have had your address saved in the notes app on my phone,” Martin mumbles from behind his hands, and just hopes that some freak lighting is going to strike him down.  
“The phone the worms stole," he clarifies. Of course, you never get freak basement lighting when you really need it. So Martin puts his hands down and faces his coworkers. Tim is grinning from ear to ear, and Jon looks...suspicious.  
"Why?" he demands.  
"Because…"d Screw it, Jon's not going to get any angrier at him than he is already.  
"Because I was going to send you a card for your birthday."  
Silence.  
"But why?" Jon asks, sounding more confused than angry.  
"Yeah, why does Jon get a card?" Tim asks, sounding more offended than confused.  
"No, I’d get you one too, but I can give it to you at work, but I thought Jon wouldn't want that so I, I, I just." Martin isn’t sure what he just, so he ends up making some sort of apologetic shrug/jazzhand gesture, that does nothing to dispel incoming hurricane Jonathan Sims.  
There are the usual warning signs. Disbelieving stare. Repeated opening and closing of the mouth, as he searches workplace appropriate words to express anger. A series of aborted gestures before he firmly pulls his arms to his side, takes a deep breath aaaaaand-  
"Great,” Jon finally says flatly.  
And there it is. The eye of the hurricane. A terrible calm that could trick you into thinking the worst is over. It never is.  
“My flat is compromised, but at least it was for a worthy cause. I'm sure those Well Wishes will be really useful when I get eaten by parasites."  
He doesn’t wait for a reply, just turns and leaves, slamming the door behind him.  
When he doesn’t immediately come back to add another grievance, Martin turns to Tim.  
"Should I talk to him?"  
"God, no."  
"I'm going to talk to him."  
Tim sighs heavily.“Of course you are. Good luck with that. See if you can stop him from just running out at least. And don’t let him kill you, that’d also be bad. I’ll call Sasha.Tell her to be cautious. I'm sure she's over the whole 'sleep' thing anyway.”  
Martin finds Jon on the balcony of all places. It's supposed to be a modern addition to the old building, perfect for outdoor lunch breaks. Effectively it’s the safe haven of the few smokers left in the Institute, and that’s exactly what Jon is doing, nearly hidden between two of the decorative potted ferns next to the safety railing. Martin approaches with caution.  
“I didn't know you smoked," he starts, trying for a casual tone.  
"I don't. I quit. But I'm prepared for emergencies."  
“Well, don’t let Diane catch you, or she’ll call the fire brigade.”  
“I don’t know who that is.”  
Jon points down, were a glow is coming from one of the top floors.  
"Besides, Elias is still in, that'd be the first appeal to authority."  
"Did you talk to him?"  
"No. Not yet."  
Jon doesn't elaborate, and he doesn't look at Martin. He just leans over the railing, the glowing end of the cigarette a trembling light in the darkness.

"Jon, listen," Martin starts and pauses a moment, waits for the usual interruption. When nothing comes, he presses on.  
"I'm really, really sorry. I didn't want things to go bad like this. I mean, it's not like I could have planned for it, or, I don't know, foreseen it."  
"No, I know. It was a tremendously stupid thing to do, but I know you didn't do it on purpose."  
That’s probably as good as he’s going to get, and Martin knows he’s in no position to argue.  
"But you saw her, right? You saw Prentiss?"  
"I think so. At the end of the hallway. The light hasn't worked in weeks, so I only could make out the silhouette but. Yes, I saw her."  
That simple admission is enough to make Martin feel immensely relieved.  
"So now you believe that there's something weird going on?"  
Jon doesn't answer right away. He takes another drag and gazes out over the city lights.  
Maybe it’s the light, or the fact that they’re out of the archives for once, but Jon looks...normal. Like he’s just a guy, not the artists interpretation of an archivist.  
But then Jon straightens up, and when he answers he sounds like he’s addressing an audience.  
"Martin, do you know what cordyceps is?"  
"What?"  
"It's a type of fungus. There are different subtypes, but to summ it up: They infect the brains of insects, most commonly ants. It then causes them to seek out places that will allow optimal growth condition for the fungus, then kills the ant and uses its body as nourishment for the next cycle of spores. It's not unreasonable to assume that whatever kind of parasite has infected Prentiss, it's doing something to her brain that's making her seek out more victims. Or a previous mental instability that was amplified by the very real, biological horror of her situation. The brain does what it needs to cope, you don't need a supernatural reason for humans to behave in strange and destructive ways."

Every person has a threshold. The threshold of Martin Blackwood is, by nature and nurture, quite higher than average. Martin Blackwood likes people. Martin Blackwood likes helping people. Martin Blackwood genuinely believes the key to conflict resolution is to consider the other person’s point of view.  
But at this precise moment Martin Blackwood has had enough.

"Are you seriously lecturing me right now?" he explodes before self-conciously lowering the volume. "You don't actually believe that, right? You saw her! We both did! This isn't an ant, this isn’t a mushroom, this is some kind of worm hive queen! She tried to kill us, Jon!"  
Jon sighs and stubbs his cigarette out in one of the potted plants.  
"I should talk to Elias."  
And just like that he leaves Martin standing on the roof, furious and alone.

*

Elias is indeed still in, and only too happy to postpone whatever flowchart he was working on late on a sunday night. He listens to Jon’s story without interruption, just nods occasionally, and once Jon is finished, he leans back and thinks for a minute before speaking.  
“Well, it seems like you’ve done everything in your power, and I am glad you got away unscathed. Things are now in the hands of disease control."  
“I...I guess so,” Jon replies cautiously. As long as he doesn’t ask for specifications, Elias can’t order him to stop looking for more information.  
“Which means now we have to take care of you.”  
“Sorry, what?”  
“There's a spare bed in the break room for artefact storage, in case of medical emergencies, that never gets much use anymore. It probably won't fit in the elevator, but you should be able to finagle it over the staircase into the archives.  
"Sorry, what?" Jon asks again, in case Elias didn’t hear him the first time.  
“Since you’ll be moving into the Archives.” Elias clarifies.  
“I don’t think that will be necessary.”  
“No? I remember you making a very passionate case for Martin being absolutely unsafe anywhere else for the time being. But, if you have re-assessed the situation, I am more than happy to send the both of you home. With a day off to recover, of course.”  
Jon considers. He’ll be fine on his own, he’s certain of that. But Martin looked absolutely terrified. And angry, he admits, remembering the outburst on the roof, but anger doesn’t do much good against forces one does not understand. And sure, he's not particularly invested in Martin's wellbeing, but if the man gets himself killed, he'll feel guilty nontheless.  
“No, you’re right,” Jon says slowly. ”That would be the safest course of action. For now.”  
“Marvelous. Now if you excuse me, I have to make some calls. Just making sure the ECDC has things under control. But I’ll let you know if there are any developments."  
Elias smiles, and it looks so genuine that Jon could almost believe that he's pleasantly surprised by this turn of events.  
But of course Elias is used to pretending things are fine, when they're actually on fire. Anyone who has regular board meetings with people as annoying and thin skinned as the Lukas family must be truly masterful at hiding frustration.

-  
Jon, on the other hand, is not good at hiding his frustration.  
“You moved a shelf?” he asks Martin, relishing the comfort of mundane office annoyances. It seems they both independently decided to forget their disagreement happened. The upside is that Martin isn't demanind explanations Jon can't give. The downside is that now Martin just talks to him again.  
“Yeah, it wasn’t hard actually. Turns out they are on wheels, and you just need to flip the little break latch thingy and they just-”  
Jon stops listening as Martin prattles on. Of course even the bloody shelves are unstable. Why would anything need to have a fixed place, it’s just two hundred years worth of documents, some of them older than the Dewey Decimal System.  
“Uh, Jon?” Martin interrupts his thoughts. “We can just move it back, if it bothers you. But it’s not like anything in here is sorted anyway. And, I mean, we know where the shelf used to be, and this way we get some privacy?”  
That finally manages to bring the whole weight of the situation down on Jon. He really is going to have to share a room with Martin for...at least a night. Probably more than that, unless they get a call tomorrow that confirms Jane Prentiss as dead and all worms accounted for.  
He replies:”Privacy would be nice.” which seems neutral enough.  
Martin doesn’t answer and they just stand in the stupid tiny room in silence.

They are saved by Tim who somehow managed to drag the camping bed all the way from artefact storage without folding it up,  
“Right, where do you want this bad boy?”  
Jon points at the other side of the dislodged shelf. It’ll be a narrow space but Martin is right. The stuffed shelf acts as a rudimentary partition, he’ll have to see what improvements to the situation he’ll be able to make in the next days. He really hopes that it won’t take longer than a few days to resolve this entire situation. It’s not a reasonable hope, but he still holds on to it, because the alternative-  
“Hey, do you uhm. Do you want some of my clothes? To sleep in?” Martin asks. “Tim got today, they’re fresh!” he hastily adds.  
“And they look really great,” Tim adds. “I’ll take a T-shirt, we’ll match.”  
Jon begrudgingly accepts an oversized black t-shirt from Martin, but his attention is on Tim.  
“You are staying here? You don’t have to.”  
Tim shrugs.  
"Eh, the travel time just isn't worth it at this point. And Sasha wants you to know that she's coming in late tomorrow," he glances at his watch and corrects himself: "today, unless it's some sort of emergency."  
They take turns changing in the bathroom.  
Martin has the advantage of clothes bought with him in mind, Jon feels thoroughly unprossefional, while Tim manages to convey that leisurewear is the new professional standard . The smile, helps, of course.  
“Now this is great!” Tim says. ”We should send a pic to Sasha, let her know she’s missing out on a quality sleepover.”  
“I’m glad you are handling this with the appropriate seriousness,” Jon says, not bothering to keep the sour tone from his voice. It’s late, and he’s tired, and he looks ridiculous.  
“Hey, life is terrifying and then you die. Make the best of it.”  
“Can that include going to sleep like adults?”  
Tim shrugs. “Go ahead, I’ll probably just chill in the office for the night.”  
“Are you sure? We can probably figure something-” Jon starts, but Tim cuts him off.  
"I wasn't planning on sleep anyway. Picked up some interesting stuff while we were in the library."  
Jon eyes the stack of books on Tim’s desk.  
"More 19th century architecture?" he guesses.  
"Hey, I know what I'm about. Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the- you know what nevermind. Just sleep."  
With that he closes the door behind him, and Jon flips off the lights, exchanging the harsh neon lights to the glow from the desk lamp on Martin’s side of the room.  
Martin disappeared into bed the moment he came back from the bathroom, and Jon tries to get comfortable in his new bed with the same enthusiasm. He'd gotten used to, well technically Gertrude's probably, but really his bed, and the one from artefact storage just isn't the same. But there wasn't a good way to bring that up. 

“Well. Uh. Good night, Jon.” Martin calls over from behind the shelf.  
“Good Night.” Jon replies reflexively, before he remembers that he is still angry at Martin. Manners never hurt, as his grandmother used to say. Martin turns the light off, and Jon stares at the small patch of light that’s hitting the ceiling through the window in the door. He tries very hard not to think about worms, larvae, or anything writhing.  
Martin turns around in his bed, clearly trieng and failing to be quiet, and Jon thinks about how annoying that is instead.  
But, he can make this work. This is nothing compared to a near death experience with a supernatural monster. This is just awkward. He’s been through awkward situations before.  
It's not going to be pleasant, but if they can work out a routine, maybe things will be tolerable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not going to write it out, but anytime there is a pov break or scenery change, please assume there is a minute long clip of Elias sitting in his office eating popcorn.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took longer than planned. March, huh? What a year. And that’s all I’ll say about that, this fic is set in the past, we’re having as much fun as possible, and if every week jonny sims throws a wrench into my plans that's just how it's going to be.

The first day is fine. There's an awkward moment when Martin and Jon head for the shower at the same time, but Martin manages to masterfully pivot towards the breakroom, while mumbling something about being an evening showerer.  
He’ll get used to it.  
And sure, Jon leaves his dishes in the sink, but it's not like Martin has any right to set the cleaning standart. Technically he has seniority, but Jon is still his boss so that evens out.  
Martin just washes the dishes and doesn't say anything.  
And so maybe Jon's sleep schedule is erratic. The first night, Martin thinks Jon is uncomfortable sharing a room. Maybe he's opting to sleep in his office after all. But Jon staggers in at around two in the morning, drops on his cot and is out in minutes.  
This goes on for a days, with little variation. Wake up, work, sleep. Rinse and repeat.  
Living at work is not too different from living at home, a thought so depressing that Martin borrows Tim’s laptop and watches cat videos for half an hour.  
It seems like Jon isn’t having much difficulty adjusting either, but then judging by the amount of clothes Jon had already at the archives, he was slowly moving in anyway.

About a week in, Martin wakes up and he can’t figure out why. The room is dark and quiet, and he’s about to turn around and wait for the alarm, when he realises there is a patch of darkness at the foot of his bed that’s deeper than the rest of the room.  
Something got in.  
Martin closes his eyes and tries his best to keep his breathing calm. His hand creeps closer to the knife he's stashed between the bedframe and the wall.  
He turns, as if he's tossing around in his sleep, brings his feet up against the wall. The thing in the darkness stops. Waits. Then, apparently fooled that he's still asleep, it creeps closer.  
Closer.  
Martin straightens his legs, the bed propels away from the wall and the moment it hits the thing Martin rolls off the other side of the bed, making sure to keep the hand with the knife between himself and whatever is howling.  
No, not howling, cursing. Worms don’t curse. And they don’t sound like- Oh god. Martin scrambles for the light, and when it turns on he can see Jon, who is bend over and clutching at his knees, and glaring at him.  
"What the hell Martin?!" Jon sounds angry and hurt, but Martin’s own adrenaline rush is still overriding any other response.  
"What the hell Martin? What the hell Jon! It’s the middle of the night, what are you doing?”  
"It's 5:30," Jon manages through gritted teeth.  
"Not the point!" Martin’s voice is shrill, he’s sounding hysterical and also still holding a knife.  
He drops it on the empty statement box he’s been using as a bedside table, and takes a deep breath.  
He manages to sidle out from behind the bed, and pushes it back against the wall, before turning back to face Jon, hopefully looking more collected than he feels.  
“What were you doing, Jon?” he asks, taking care to keep his voice level.  
Jon straightens up, grimaces, and gestures at the shelf they're using as a room divider.  
"I remembered something in here. When I first tried to figure out if there was any system behind the chaos, I read a couple of the files. There should be something in here about the Dennekin statement."  
"And that couldn't wait until we're actually supposed to be at work?"  
"I was already awake." Jon says, as if that's a perfectly rational explanation.  
"Great, and because you don't need sleep that means you're just- “ he stops himself.  
“Sorry, I. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Are you okay?”  
Jon doesn’t answer, just looks at him for a moment before saying:  
"If you have a problem, you should tell me.”

Martin doesn't think he can explain how that is just not an option. In his experience, having a problem means you've done something wrong, and if other people haven't noticed yet, well, no reason to call attention to it. But Jon is looking at him expectantly, and Martin did just almost break his legs.  
"I just. Can you just turn the light on if you need something from the storage room?”  
"I was trying not to wake you up."  
"Right, but if you turn your reading lamp on I'll wake up, see it's just you and go back to sleep. But if you creep around in the dark, I wake up to someone creeping around in the dark, and assume it's another horrible monster trying to kill me.”  
“Fine. I’ll be more conspicuous.”  
And that’s it. Jon goes back to rifling through the files. Martin waits for a follow up, a snide remark, but nothing comes.  
It seems like the conversation is just over. He glances at the alarm clock. Jon was right, it is 5:30 in the morning. The one upside Martin had found to his situation was that skipping out on the daily commute meant he could sleep in, but getting used to that was probably decadent of him. Fine. If he’s up, he’s up.  
"Hey, do you want tea?"  
"If you're making it, sure." Jon says absentmindedly.  
"I am making it. How do you take it?"  
"I really don't care."  
That’s the regular answer, but Martin has poured away enough cold tea to know it’s not strictly true. But asking his boss for more clarification is a special flavour of terrifying. Then again, they’re not on the clock and Jon just took something in the neighbourhood of criticism really well, so...  
"Any more info than that? I really don’t want to make something in that's just going down the drain. Kind of wasteful," he says, making sure to keep his tone light and free of any accusation.  
Jon pauses, thinks.  
"No, you're right. Sorry. No milk, with sugar please."  
"Okay." 

Martin goes to get breakfast, feeling oddly cheerful despite the rude awakening.  
The elation is only slightly dampened by the feeling that being this pleased about something so small is somewhat pathetic.  
He still hums to himself as he lets the tea steep.

*  
Jon weighs his dinner options. Instant Ramen or cereal. Both are not ideal. He decides on the ramen, hot food is at least dinner-adjacent.  
What could have been a moment of peace, quiet, and an msg-overdose is interrupted by Martin barging in.  
He just waves in reply to Jons quizzical look and goes rooting through a drawer.  
“Had a shower idea! Aha!”  
He pulls a corkscrew from the back of a drawer and waves it triumphantly at Jon.  
Jon isn’t too keen on Martin wielding sharp objects, but curiosity wins out against trepidation.  
"Okay, why?”  
"Well, if the worms burrow down, then cutting them out with a knife won't be all that efficient. And tweezers would require a hole bigger enough than the thing you’re tweezing, but a cork-”  
"-is perfectly sized to its opening,” Jon finishes. ”That actually is a good idea."  
"Yeah. I know."  
"You realise that the whole point of living here is that we won't have to worry about this?"  
Martin sits down and pours himself some cereal.  
“Okay, let’s hear your great plan then. What are you doing if Prentiss gets in here?”  
“I don’t need a plan, because that is not going to happen.”  
“But what if?”  
“No what if!"  
“Fine, then when it does happen anyway, I’ll be the only one with a patented worm remover. Which will make me effectively the ruler of the Archives. All bow down before Emperor Martin. My reign will be strict, but fair.”  
He talks as if he’s making a joke, but it is more pushback Jon has ever gotten when disagreeing with Martin.  
"Are you feeling alright?"  
Martin winces."I might be coming down with cabin fever."  
"Then you should probably get out more."  
"But...the worms."  
Right.  
Martin seemed to be handling the situation quite well, aside from his understandable outburst on the roof, and his apparently sleeping with a knife, and his thinking about what to do in the worst case scenario. Oh. Damn.

"From what we know, they don't like sunlight. As long as you go out during the day you should be fine."  
Martin makes a noncommittal noise and stirs his cereal, and Jon just knows that if he doesn’t force Martin out, he’s going to stay cooped up in the archives forever. But just throwing him out there on his own would also be cruel.  
Well, there is one alternative.  
"Or you could accompany me tomorrow. I need to pick up some things from my place. Just some books we don’t have at the library for some reason. Maybe some clothes, while I’m there."  
“You don’t need to babysit me.”  
“No, no that’s not it at all,” Jon lies. “But between the books, and clothes, and the, uhhh, towels… I could use the help. Some of those books are quite heavy.”  
“Oh!” Martin brightens up considerably.”Oh, yeah, I can help you with that. No problem.”  
“Great. We’ll have to take an extended lunch break, but we’re probably making up for it anyway.”  
Jon gets up, and puts his bowl in the sink. He’ll wash up later.

*  
Jon hovers around Sasha while she does her thing on the laptop.  
She's been evasive on why she learned hacking, and her skill coupled with utter disrespect for privacy means that Jon has to change his desktop-background from Bigfoot telling him to get a better password every few weeks, but there are upsides.

"Looks like the timeline checks out at least." Sasha says, highlighting a section on the page. "He put in an order at 1:21am, delivered at 1:50, to the home address on file."  
"Fast service on a friday."  
"Oh, I'll definitely give them a try. I’m paying cash though. These guys are not responsible enough to have anyone's banking information. "  
"I can't believe you can just hack into their database like that."  
Sasha scoffs. "This does not count as hacking. They used fifteen different free templates and just stitched them together like a really cheap Frankenstein. We’re just using a backdoor they forgot to lock.”  
“Mixing metaphors, ” Tim chides from his desk.  
“And Frankenstein is the-” Jon starts, before the groans cut him off.  
Sasha actually wags her finger at him. “We are not having this argument again, Jon.”  
What would nevertheless devolve into a heated debate about the custody and/or legitimacy of a patchwork corpse is thankfully interrupted by Martin.  
“Hey Jon, are you ready to go?”  
Tim's head snaps up at that.  
“Where are you going?” he asks, sounding oddly panicked.  
“Just getting some things from my place. Books for reference, mostly.”  
Tim seems less than enthusiastic.“Okay, cool. Uhmmm.”  
He and Sasha exchange a look.  
“What?” Jon asks.  
“Easier to just show you.”

Jon looks down at the pale worms wriggling pathetically on the pavement in front of the institute.  
“How long has this been happening?”  
“I saw the first two days ago,” Sasha replies. “We asked around, and people noticed them, but nobody mentioned being attacked or anything. They don’t seem that dangerous.”  
Jon has to agree. The worms seem sluggish (hah!), uncoordinated, and sickly, and they burst with an anticlimactic lack of pop as Sasha stomps on them.  
Tim watches her with unconcealed disgust, while Martin still hasn’t come down from the Institute’s steps.

"You should have told me,” Jon says. “If this really is the, the-"  
"The Prentiss Parasite." Tim says gravely.  
"No."  
"Prentisite." Sasha suggest.  
"Absolutely not. Whatever the scientific name, we still need to be careful. They can't do much without a host, but we should make sure everyone is gone before sundown.”  
Sasha frowns.“I tried to talk to Elias about it, but you know what he’s like. He listened and then just asked about the cannibal-sighting under Finsbury Park. Which I should get back to, by the way.” She leans in and lowers her voice conspiratorially.  
“Should we just lie? Tell Elias someone got attacked ?”  
“No, no. I’ll talk to him." Jon feels he's on thin ice as it is. He hopes that using the extra time in the archives to get more work done will be enough to justify him and Martin camping there, but he has a feeling that lying to Elias won’t be the best idea. If nothing else, there is a very obvious security camera over the entrance to the Institute, that would make it difficult.  
Sasha doesn't seem terribly convinced, but nods. 

“Right,” Jon says. “We’re going to get the books then. Do you want to come along?”  
Tim looks crestfallen. “You know it pains me to decline, but no. I’m going to look for those articles on circuses I told you about.”  
“Great, thank you.”  
“And I really want to finish this statement up today,” Sasha says.”The London Underground Cannibal Society won't reveal itself."  
"Carefull with that," Tim says. "I heard admission is an arm and a leg."  
Sasha laughs, and pulls him away.

*  
They make it to Jon’s place without incident, not counting Martin’s panicked shriek when the elevator at the tube station opened to a woman in a red dress.  
But once they are in Jon’s building, Martin starts back up with his hemming and hawing.  
"Look, I can just wait outside, if you'd prefer."  
Jon would very much prefer that. He’s had to read some of Martin’s interviews. Letting Martin Blackwood into your home means having every detail of your interior decorating analyzed and possibly complimented.  
But there’s no polite way to let him just sit on the doorstep, so Jon just leads the way in.  
The flat is as he left it. No signs of forced entry, not even a dead worm under the door, but plenty of things Jon notices now that he’s not alone in the place. Half-open blinds, little piles of paperwork for various projects strewn around, dishes from breakfast in the sink, laundry he meant to fold at some point in it’s basket in the hallway, right the next to a box of pictures he should have hung up by now but didn’t.

Martin is looking around with way to much interest.  
"Okay, what do you want me to do?" he asks.  
Sit quietly in the corner and don't touch anything, Jon thinks.  
"Just wait in the kitchen while I pack up," Jon says, and heads for the bedroom. The clothes don’t take long to pack, he just throws whatever he thinks he might need into his suitcase.  
The books are a challenge. He knows roughly what they do and don’t have at the Institute’s library, but given the scattershot of topics in the statements, it’s almost impossible to predict what specific fields are going to be relevant. He ends up picking out both, broad reference guides and highly specific publications. And the book on the different taboos surrounding cannibalism for Sasha.  
He considers smuggling the introductory book into archiving in his suitcase, but there’s just no guarantee he’ll be able to hide it.

Something taps him on the shoulder, and Jon recoils. He turns to find Martin with both hands raised and eyes wide.  
“Sorry, sorry. I called, but you didn't react so I just, I wasn't trying to sneak up on you. "  
"No, it's fine. I just don't like being touched."  
That is not strictly true, but it is easier to say than 'there are about four people in the world whose physical contact I am comfortable with, and you are not on the list'.  
"Oh. Sorry."  
"Please stop apologizing. It's not a thing, it's just a preference. What was it you wanted?" 

"Uhm. I think your plants a dead." Martin gestures through the open doors towards the kitchen’s window sill, we're the latest victims of Jon’s attempts at horticulture are still laid out.  
"I guess so."  
"We should have come sooner." Martin sounds genuinely troubled, and Jon feels a tinge of embarrassment.  
“No, that's, uh, that’s actually unrelated. The plants have been dead for months."  
“Oh.”  
“I just don’t have that green thumb,” Jon adds, perhaps more apologetic than he should feel. Killing plants happens to everyone, but most people at least remember to get rid of the evidence.  
"Right, that should be everything relevant,” he says, hefting the backpack up. 

As he gives the shelf another once-over his eye catches on one of his collection folders. Something has been nagging him since he read the notes on the Dennekin statement. And it wasn't something he’d seen in the storage room files, it was…  
"Jon?"  
"Huh?"  
"Are you okay? You kind of spaced out. Again."  
"Yeah, yeah I’m fine. Just checking something.”

Jon carefully flips through the folder of postcards until he finds the one he remembered.  
A middle aged man with an unruly beard stands in front of a calliope, flanked by a badly taxidermied tiger.  
There's no source for the picture on the back, but the card was sent 1970 and if google translate can be trusted, the text on the back says something along the lines of “Had a great time at the circus”.

"I thought this might be the Calliope mentioned in the statement, but it’s blue, not red. For some reason I remembered the picture in black and white.”  
“I mean, if it’s that old it could have gotten a new coat of paint, right?”  
“I guess so. But it is still highly unlikely that I’d just happen to have something related to a case in my personal collection.”  
“Can’t hurt to double check though.”  
Jon is getting a pretty good idea why Martin’s investigations tend to take so goddamn long. But he has a point, so Jon carefully slides the card out of its sleeve and goes hunting for the box of shipping-sleeves he’s kept around, while Martin flips through his collection.  
"Why do you have these anyway?"  
That has been the opening line of many a mockery, but Martin seems just genuinely curious, and is handling the folder with almost reverend care.

“Well, the postcard was introduced in the UK in 1870, and exploded in popularity. Everyone was sending them. And the designs were similar to what you’d get today, landscapes, celebrities, important architecture and so on, but a lot of those places simply don’t exist anymore. Landscape changed, cities got razed burned down or just demolished in the name of progress, and the celebrities died.  
And the older the card, the less codified the the text gets. Nowadays everyone writes about the weather being nice, and you have those too, but you also get detailed travel logs crammed on the card, or vicious insults against the recipient, because of course the card would be read by someone on the way and soon everyone would know.  
You get this glimpse into the lives of people who are long gone, but you have a little testament that they once existed. And then once you look at international developments you get things like- ”  
Jon catches himself mid-ramble, but Martin doesn’t have that glassy eyed look people often get when they unwittingly set him off. 

“Anyway,” Jon stammers, ”we should get going while it’s still bright out.”

*

Martin carries the backpack stuffed with books, while Jon insists on lugging his trolley case downstairs by himself. Probably something about separating work and personal business, after Jon’s third refusal, Martin doesn’t offer any more help.  
He makes it down the stairs first and hold the door open for Jon. But as Jon walks out, Martin notices the metal door under the stairs.

“What?” Jon asks.  
"Basement door."  
"Yes?"  
"Well, last time she was hiding in the basement…"  
"Martin, the ECDC are trained professionals. I’m sure they remembered to check."  
"Yeah, you're right." And he really is, but Martin can’t bring himself to move on, and after a long pause, Jon relents.  
"But you still want to take a look?"  
"It's gonna bother me if I don't," Martin admits.  
Jon sighs, but steps back inside.

The stairs are dark. Jon flips the light switch a couple of times to no effect. He grumbles and pulls a torch from the depths of his luggage.  
Once they make it down the stairs, they stand in one long, narrow hallway, with little sections behind padlocked doors. There’s a sharp bend at the end, where a small grimy window lets in just enough light to elevate the scene from dingy basement to horror movie set.  
Jon moves through slowly, shining the light on every lock. Martin follows and keeps his eye on the ground, ready to bolt if anything so much as wiggles.  
They turn the corner, and a sweep of the torch reveals more padlocked sections, a metal door with a ‘do not enter’ sticker, and a humanoid figure dressed in red standing at the very end of the hallway.  
Martin is halfway up the stairs, when he realises Jon isn’t following. He is standing frozen to the spot, shoulders drawn up to his ears, torch raised halfway as if he’s seriously considering just clubbing a monster with it.  
He doesn’t react to Martin’s shouting, maybe doesn’t even hear it. Martin races back, they’ll either have to fight this thing together, or he’ll carry Jon out of this place if he has to. 

The figure hasn't moved at all. Maybe it hasn't noticed them yet? Jon’s torch is still pointing at the ceiling, so the light hasn’t given them away.  
But it doesn't sway the way Prentiss did, it just stands there eerily still, and Martin finds himself reaching out.  
“Don’t touch it!” Jon hisses, and Martin comes to his senses. He reaches back, gently pulls the torch out of Jon’s hand, and lobs it down the corridor.  
It hits the figure square in the chest and sends it to the floor. When it doesn’t get back up, Martin slowly nudges closer, until he can make the thing out.  
It’s wearing red, but not a dress, the material is thick. Things click when Martin notices the white trim and he starts laughing.

“It’s Santa Claus.”  
“What?” Jon moves in.  
Martin picks the torch up and shines it right at the figure. It wasn’t made to be Santa, it looks like a bland store mannequin, but someone dressed it up, glued a flowing beard on, and even went to the trouble of drawing on some sparkling blue eyes and wrinkles on the otherwise smooth face. The effect speaks of a labor of love, if not ability.  
Jon groans. “Christ, okay. Someone always puts this thing out in december. It’s creepy enough then.”  
“It’s not exactly jolly, is it?” Martin agrees. “This guy isn’t like ‘‘Ho Ho Ho’, more like-”  
he theatralicaly rubs his hands together, “MuaHaHaha”.  
It’s not a good joke by any means, but tensions are high.  
Jon starts with the dry chuckle Martin has heard a few times by now, but quickly devolves into full blown laughter that is so unexpected it sets Martin off.  
They keep laughing until Martin’s face hurts (god he really hasn’t laughed in some time), and when he finally pulls himself together, he’s surprised his voice isn’t hoarse.  
“I know withholding information is like, the opposite of what we’re supposed to do,” Martin manages to say, “but maybe let’s not tell the others about this?”  
Jon is wiping away actual tears while still grinning wider than Martin has ever seen.  
“Agreed. I am making the executive decision that we have done more than enough follow up. Let's go."  
They leave, but not before Martin rightens the dummy back up and does his best to swipe off some of the dirt. Whoever parked that thing down here might have given him a heart attack, and their taste is highly questionable, but it’s not their fault that his life is so weird.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :D


	4. Chapter 4

Screaming at a mannequins like a pair of children is not listed in any team-building booklet that Jon ever read, but it gets the job done.  
They fall into a casual routine. Jon tends to get up first, and if it’s close to the set alarm he turns the lights on. Martin sets up breakfast while Jon showers, they both get an early start at work.  
It takes some trial and error, and he has to consider tea in mich more detail than can be necessary, but the list of 'tea Jon not only tolerates but actually enjoys' grows ever longer.  
Tim and Sasha join Martin on a few careful expeditions for lunch, and Martin soon feels confident enough to go out on his own again. At least while it's still bright out, and Jon notices that he always transfers the corkscrew from it’s hidey hole in their room to his jacket.  
Jon himself prefers to stay inside, it’s simply more productive. And it’s not like he doesn’t leave at all. He goes to the library, and sneaks the occasional cigarette on the roof.

It’s when he comes back from one of those excursion, that he finds Martin still on the phone, in the exact spot he was when Jon left, with more scribbled notes in front of him the only indication of time passing.  
He catches Jon looking and shrugs apologetically. 

Jon checks back every ten minutes or so, and when Martin finally hangs up, he asks him into his office.  
“Was that Mrs. Arno up in Palmers Green?”  
“Yes,” comes the answer.  
The guarded tone is...well, it’s not new, but it does remind Jon uncomfortably of the other times he’s chewed Martin out.  
“Martin, you’re not in trouble. I just don’t understand why it would take you almost an hour to check up on a very basic story.”  
“So it just started because I asked her how she’d been, and she told me she’d been to the doctor recently because her knee was acting up, and then-”  
“Right,” Jon interrupts him. “And while I’m sure that was all fascinating, it really has nothing to do with… what was her story?”  
“Six months ago, a horrible green monster climbed out of her garden pond and vanished into thin air.”  
“Of course it did. But I don’t see how that story warranted more than some very basic follow up questions. You really need to be more direct when you talk to people.”  
“Well, but what if- Nevermind.”  
“What?” Jon asks. God, getting constructive answers out of Martin really is like pulling teeth. He tries to give him an encouraging smile, and apparently it’s enough to get Martin to speak.

"What if someone doesn't want to talk to us?"  
"Then they are wasting our time, Martin. It's not like the Institute forces anyone to come in here and tell us about that one time they saw a ghost when they were out on a pub crawl."  
"Right, that’s not what I mean. What if some people just need some time before they’re ready to talk about something scary that happened to them? You’ve called people back in research, they don’t always want to talk to us. We’re lucky if they just hang up, and don’t start cussing us out.”  
Which is why Jon was very happy to delegate these tasks to his assistants.  
"But Mrs. Arno told me all about her visit to the doctor, her feud with her neighbour, and some local gossip, and then she was ready to talk about the strange creature in her garden.”

"So your strategy is lulling people into a sense of security in order to make them talk?"  
"That is a really sinister way of putting it," Martin says, taken aback.  
"But not incorrect?"  
"I'm… I guess not? Look, we have a different approach to this, but I don't think mine is wrong. If you just need the facts, handing them a questionnaire is fine, but sometimes it’s better to play it slow, make people feel comfortable. And I just don’t think that is a bad thing.”

Jon mulls it over, but can’t find a flaw in the logic. It's not what he'd do, but he also can't deny that his direct approach doesn't always yield the best results.  
"You're right," he says.  
"Sorry, what?"  
"You make a good argument. I agree with you."  
The way Martin stares at him, as if that is the most unlikely story ever heard in the archives, feels just the tiniest bit insulting.  
"So what about the pond monster?" he asks, and Martin relaxes.  
"Oh, I think that was just the neighbour's kids. Their feud is about a hole in the hedge, and the kids sounded pretty rambunctious so...”  
“Figures," Jon sighs. "Anyway, good work."  
Martin smiles tentatively and gets ready to leave, but Jon stops him and says:  
"I really should have asked this sooner, but do you want to get some things from your flat? I could go with you."  
Martin doesn't seemed to thrilled. If anything, he looks more anxious than before.  
“No. No, I’m good,” he says eventually. “But I was going to get lunch, if you want to get some fresh air."  
"Do you need help with that?”  
"No, no I got it. And Sasha is coming too. I just thought, you know. Strength in numbers."  
“I think the worms have us beat there.”  
Martin just stares back at him, and Jon isn't sure whether he didn't get that that was a joke, or just didn't find it funny. Best not to ask.  
“Yeah, probably, " Martin finally says. "But it still would be good to get out of the archives, you know?”  
Jon hesitates.  
“You do know that, right?”  
"Let me get my coat.”

*  
"Ready to go?" Sasha asks as Martin joins her in the assistant’s room.  
"Almost. I invited Jon along, he's just getting ready," Martin tells her.  
"Oh. Sure." For just a second, there is a flicker of annoyance on Sasha's face that's quickly replaced by a smile. Martin smiles back and tries to push down the anxiety that's been on the raise since Jon brought up the possibility of seeing Martin's home.  
Jon’s flat had that very professional adult look, with clean lines, rows of books, several academic projects, and an alphabetized spice rack.  
His own place is a mix of Ikea furniture and random knick knacks he picked up at charity shops. Sure, Martin has a couple of notebooks lying around, but he'd rather set the whole place on fire than have his boss read his poetry.  
He might be able to lie about the New Hope poster, pretend he got it when the movie first came out, but the rest of the place really screams ‘I’m in my late twenties and have no idea what I’m doing”. It’s not a good look, especially since Jon still thinks Martin is a good half decade older than he actually is.

He's pulled out of his thoughts by the sound of tearing paper, followed by Jon's horror-tinged voice.  
“What on earth are you doing?” Jon asks Tim, who doesn't seem too worried.  
"Funny thing, remember when you said ‘The only way Gertrude Robinson could have been less efficient is if she taped the files shut’? I remember because I was simply scandalized by the harsh language against the elderly.”  
“Your point being?”  
In reply Tim waves a statement folder that has several broad lines of silver duct tape running along its edge, and gestures to the two stacks of folders on his desk. One for those that are still taped, and one for those he's manage to wrench open.  
"You are joking."  
"No, my jokes are funny. This is just tedious."  
Martin runs a finger over one of the mangled envelopes. The tape had not been applied with care, and several chunks of the files inside came away with it.  
“You should use a hairdryer, the heat makes the glue soft and you can peel the tape of with less damage." That gets him surprised stares from everyone.  
“What? I buy vintage stuff.”  
“And where would I get a hairdryer at the Institute?” Tim asks.  
Sasha says: ”No, I might actually have a hook up. You know Patrick from artefact storage?”  
"Tall guy? Long hair, flowy beard? Kind of uhm, ruggedly handsome?" Martin asks, and immediately regrets it when Tim turns towards him with a terrible gleam in his eyes.  
"That's him," Sasha answers, ignorant of the horror Martin has unleashed. "Looking that rugged is a lot of work. He has a whole grooming kit, in case things get messy over there. I can text him, ask if he has a hair dryer."  
“Good luck with that. Let me know if it works,"Jon says as he puts his jacket on.  
"You don't want to stick around? Meet Patrick? He sounds great. Doesn’t he, Martin?" Tim is still grinning at Martin, but Jon seems oblivious, thank god.  
"If you need help operating a hair dryer, I’ve really overestimated you.”

They still cross paths with Patrick in the reception hall.  
In Martin's experience there's two kinds of people who end up working in artefact storage long time: Those that get a bit twitchy but resilient, and those that seem immune to the daily trials, tribulations, and trauma of handling supernatural objects. Patrick, who looks like he should model lumberjack gear and grins widely as he waves a travel sized hair dryer at them in lieu of a greeting and immediately starts talking to Sasha, seems to be the later.  
Not that Martin is in any position to judge either, his living situation being what it is.  
The conversation is light hearted and Martin wouldn’t mind joining in, but when he glances to the side, he catches Jon scowling.

"Maybe we can get to go?" Martin suggests tentatively, suspecting that Jon’s foul mood is the result of an unexpected extension of the lunch break.  
"Martin, we need to get back to the archives,” Jon says, as if he hasn't heard him.  
"Why?"  
"We have to secure the illuminated manuscripts before the rest of the viking horde gets there.”  
This time Martin catches the quick look in his direction and the slight smile when Jon sees that he's looking. So Jon is actually joking now. It’s cute. That should not be allowed.  
Martin steers his thoughts to safer topics.  
“I think we’ll be alright. He looks more romance-novel viking than historical drama.”  
“Fine. But I’m blaming you if we come back and the archives are burnt down and Tim has eloped to Norway.”  
“That is fair."

Lunch is nice. They end up talking about victorian trick photography, which Martin knows plenty about and Jon and Sasha are attentive listener for.  
Perhaps a bit too attentive, Jon asks whether Martin studied something about it in Uni, which is a very normal, and surprisingly social question, but it catches Martin off guard. He covers by over chewing his his panini while frantically trying to remember if and what he’s told Jon about his university experience.  
Sasha abruptly starts talking about photoshop, and Martin sends silent thanks her way.

The Archives are still standing when they return, and Tim is still there to accept the delivered sandwich, although he makes a big production out of handing Martin a post-it with a phone number written on it. Martin shoves it into his pocket and vows to ignore it. Dating at work would be unwise under any circumstances, but in his current situation it's downright unthinkable. 

Jon disappears into his office to record the latest technology resistant statement, and before Martin can get back to work, Sasha beckons him to follow her out in the hallway.

Once the door is close she turns to him and says:  
“I just wanted to ask if you’re doing okay? It can’t be easy, living here and living with Jon on top of that.”  
Ah. That explains why she wasn't happy about Jon joining them. Martin takes a moment to consider.  
"I think so? I mean, it’s not ideal, and I really just want someone to find Prentiss so I can go home and not be scared all the time. But I’m dealing with it. I'm trying some mindfulness exercise And Jon is still Jon, so it’s not like we're being domestic, and he does some things that are annoying, but it's not bad, you know?"  
"He eats the takeaway we bring home and doesn't do the dishes," Sasha says, and laughs when Martin asks how she knows.  
"Congratulations Martin, you have acquired an uni roommate."  
"But he's been quite nice, actually. A lot less…” he doesn’t know how to end that sentence in a diplomatic way. But Sasha seems to get the meaning.  
”Okay," she says, still sounding a bit doubtful. "But let me know if he ever gets too much.”  
"Why, what would you do?"  
"I have my ways," Sasha says with a wink, that somehow makes her seem more dangerous.

Martin does his routine check of the room before settling in for the night. The door still closes airtight, the window is sealed. The Air vents are operational, but the filtration system meant to protect documents from humidity will sound an alarm if it gets clogged.  
He gives the outlet grid a good shake, just to be sure. It doesn’t budge and he considers the room safe for tonight.  
Jon is already in bed, oddly enough. But who is Martin to question the strange and elusive sleep schedule of Jonathan Sims?  
He gets comfortable on his cot with the spy thriller he found tucked away between statements. It’s not his usual taste, but it was free, passed the Leitner-Check, and whoever owned it previously left some very insightful comments scribbled in the margins, mostly concerning the encryption methods used by the protagonist, and call-outs on bad decisions their making. 

Together with the actual plot it makes for an interesting read, but Martin’s attention keeps drifting to the beams of light that make their way through the shelf of files that separates the room.  
"Hey, what are you reading?" he calls over. The answer comes prompt and flat.  
"I am trying to sleep."  
Martin stretches enough to peer through a gap in the files. Jon is really just lying there staring up at the ceiling.  
"I know I told you to turn the light on if you move around, but you don't have to keep it burning all night. Just go to sleep."  
"It's fine."  
No explanation, no follow up, not even a truly acidic answer. Jon has never slept like that before, and there's no reason for Jon to switch his behavior all of sudden. Unless...  
"Which statement did you record today again?" he asks with the caution of someone approaching a snapping turtle.  
"Mark Bilham, regarding events culminating in his visit to Hither Green Chapel, " Jon recites.  
"The one with the darkness cult?"  
"Yes."  
Martin waits, but Jon doesn’t elaborate.  
"Jon, do you want to sleep with the lights on?"  
"Of course not. It's not like any of us joined a cult. Unless there's something you haven't told me."  
Martin considers pointing out the obvious deflection, but what good would it do? Jon really can be too stubborn for his own good.  
"No Jon, I did not join a cult," he sighs.  
"That is good to hear."  
And with that, the light turns off.  
For just a moment, Martin considers letting Jon lie in the dark bed he’s made for himself.  
But of course that’s only an option in theory.  
So instead he turns on the little night light he’s been using for decorative purposes and sets it in a gap in the files, before turning back to his book. There’s no reply from the other side of the room, and Martin reads for another half hour before shutting his own reading light off.

It takes another five minutes lying in the not-quite dark before there's a sign of life from the other side.  
"Martin?"  
"Hm?"  
"Thank you. And. Sorry for being…well, me."  
"I don't mind." The words are out easy and Martin is thankful there is a room divider between them. No amount of darkness could hide the sheer embarrassment on his face.  
Jon thankfully doesn't answer, and after a few minutes of silence, Martin convinces himself that he probably didn't even hear him. Probably fell asleep right away.

*  
Jon can't pinpoint when he actually fell asleep. One moment he is staring at glowing children's toy, next thing he knows the alarm is beeping at him.  
The memory of last night comes back and Jon barely manages to stifle an embarrassed groan.  
It's not enough that he needs a nightlight like a child, he has to act like one in front of his co-worker too. 

Thankfully Martin doesn't bring it up, instead he spends the time before the work day officially starts with figuring out the most efficient way to hit as many follow up interviews as possible over the day.  
Jon watches with fascination as he slowly takes over more and more of the table with a map of London, a flyer with the map of the underground system, a list of the addresses he plans to visit, and multi colored sticky notes.  
Martin circles destinations and corresponding tube stations, move sticky notes around, and adds more information to one of several notepads, then fuses several notes together on a separate piece of paper, in a frankly astonishing lack of organisation.

It's a big mess right until it isn't, certain notepads get stacked to the side, sticky notes disappear, and Martin ends up with a very detailed travel plan on a single sheet of paper, although it takes him another few minutes to clean up the detritus.  
Jon pretends not to notice that Martin has allotted several chunks of time to ‘making them talk’.

It's probably for the best that Martin is out, because Jon realises that he’s having a sullen day. He’s short, he’s snippy, and when a file slips his grasp and the loose papers scatter on the floor, his string of curses is loud enough to draw Tim into the room.

“You alright there, boss?” Tim asks.  
"Fine," Jon snaps. He winces and adds: "It's fine. Sorry. Just got a headache."  
"Hm. You drink enough water today?"  
"Please don't try to diagnose me. Martin is bad enough, I can't deal with two -" he stops as the realisation hits him.  
"What was that?"  
"Never mind, " Jon mumbles and haphazardly shoves the papers back together. It's not like he's doing any more damage to the system at this point. He makes his way to the kitchen and makes himself some tea. Of course, Martin has been gone for most of the day, which means there hasn't been the usual barrage of tea forced on him. Which means Jon really is just dehydrated.  
He stews on that together with his tea. It's not that he can't take care of himself, he's done perfectly fine on his own for years. But it is a bit worrying how quickly he's come to rely on Martin of all people.

He offers some of his terrible tea to Sasha, which takes more effort than it should. He practically has to wave his hand in front of her face until she finally reacts, declines, and goes back to staring at her screen.

He thinks nothing more of it, until the next day, when she comes in with a shoulder wound and a statement for the archive.

-  
Martin finds him an hour later, still sitting at his desk and staring into space.  
“Hey, is something wrong?”  
“Worms attacked Sasha and something called Michael wants to be our friend.”  
He can't help but laugh at how ridiculous that sounds when said out loud.  
But Martin's look of terror makes it clear that he doesn't think it's funny.  
“Sasha is fine," Jon says before he can ask. "She’s in the breakroom with Tim.”  
“Oh thank god." Martin sags with relief.  
"Do you think Prentiss is going after us one by one? Because that would mean Tim is next!”  
“No, no. Prentiss didn’t find Sasha, it was one of her previous victims. And Sasha sought him out on her own."  
"What? Why would she do that?"  
"Because she thought I wouldn’t-"  
And that's the simple fact he's been trying to avoid thinking about. Sasha went out on her own, because she thought Jon wouldn't believe her about anything supernatural without physical evidence. And Martin was so concerned about a bad performance review, he broke into a basement in the middle of the night.  
And both would be fine, if it wasn't for the secrecy they employed, to keep their sceptic boss from chewing them out, to find proof that even Jonathan Sims couldn't rationalize away. 

“This isn’t working,” he says.  
“What isn’t?” Martin asks, startling Jon. He’d been so caught up in his thoughts, he simply tuned out that he wasn’t alone in the room.  
Martin is looking at him with nothing but open faced concern, and Jon feels the beginning of dread forming in his stomach. This is not going to be fun.

“Martin, can you get Tim and Sasha? I don’t want to have to explain this multiple times.”  
“What is going on?”  
“Please, Martin.”

Once the assistants are seated he takes a deep breath and starts recording.  
"When I was eight years old I came into the possession of a book from the library of Jurgen Leitner."  
He gives them twenty seconds to get the shouting, cursing, and talking over each other out of their system, before he raises his hand and, amazingly, they shut up.

"I wish I could say that I survived the encounter by my own ingenuity, but really it was just pure luck. A teenager from my neighborhood took the book and suffered the consequences, which were as deadly as you might imagine. The details are not important right now, and I am planning to fill out a formal statement for the archive.  
But I know, I have known for years, that the supernatural is real, and dangerous, and I believe the statements I record on tape are part of it.”  
He looks at Tim, who he assumes will be the most doubtful. ”I know this sounds absurd, especially if you haven't experienced anything yourself, but-"  
"Something took my brother," Tim interrupts him. There’s a look on his face that Jon hasn’t seen before. He still looks like himself, but for the first time it’s obvious that the lines on his face aren’t just from laughing and time spent outdoors.  
"Four years ago now. Officially he's still missing presumed dead, but I know. I saw. I don't want to get into it right now, I wasn't exactly planning to have this conversation today. I'll write you a bloody statement. But I know what I saw and it wasn’t a trick of the light or a hallucination."  
The challenge in his eyes is enough confirmation that Jon has made the right decision.  
"I believe you. And I'm sorry."  
There’s no answer from Tim, just a curt nod, before he turns towards Sasha.  
Sasha says:”Don't look at me, I'm not going to argue. I didn't really believe until I started working here. But a month in storage will turn the most hardened skeptic into a believer. And even with the obvious liars or the mentally ill, you get enough in research to know that there’s more out there."  
Martin shrugs, but keeps staring at Jon, who in turn does his best to avoid eye contact.

"What do we do now?" Tim asks finally.  
"Assuming you still want to work here, we keep going. There is something going on with the statements, the real ones, that don't record and that can’t be easily explained. And I intend to find out. But we need to filter them from the rest, and it doesn't seem like Gertrude Robinson had any idea that there was more to this archive."  
"So you're saying we don't do anything different than before,” Tim says.  
"No! No, we need to communicate. If something is dangerous or someone gets approached by a strange creature pretending to be a human, we need to talk to each other. Trying to do things alone is just going to get one of us killed sooner or later, and the others won't even know what happened."  
"I was barely in danger," Sasha protests. "And I made it out okay.”  
“You had emergency surgery by Edward Scissorhands, ” Tim points out.  
“But did I die? No I did not. I count that as a success.”  
Tim chuckles at that and Jon can feel some of the tension drain out of the room.

Sasha leans forward and clicks the tape recorder off before speaking.  
"What about Elias? We tell him what exactly?"  
"I don't know. If I just tell him everything he'll think I've cracked under stress. I probably would think the same in his position. I'll figure something out. But let’s keep this between us at the archive. For now.”  
The assistants agree, and Tim offers to take Sasha home. She informs Jon that she will be taking a few days off, citing 'a lot to think about'.  
Jon is happy to sign off on that, and accompanies them to the door. He watches until they're gone.  
That went surprisingly well. He really was ready to fight, but they handled it well.  
He turns and comes face to face with Martin standing in the doorway. Martin does not look happy.

"I know this is a lot to take in, but if you want to talk…"  
"It's not though. It explains a whole lot about you, actually. I mean, you're supposed to be smart, but you kept ignoring actual evidence of the paranormal. It makes more sense if you were just pretending."  
“Thank you?”  
“I’m not saying it was a good idea!”  
The sharpness hits Jon by surprise.  
“I asked you, I looked you in the eyes and asked you, and you straight up lied to me! Made me feel like I was the unreasonable one!”  
"I really thought if I kept those aspects of this job to myself, I could minimize the damage."  
"Well, it didn't work."  
"No, it did not."  
There’s a pause, and Jon thinks maybe he should just go, let them both cool down.  
But Martin isn’t finished yet.  
"And anyone else who comes here and gives a statement and gets dismissed by you, they also feel horrible."  
"Well what would you have me do, Martin? 'Welcome to the Magnus Institute, oh by the way the world is terrifying and there really is a monster that’s trying to kill you, lucky you! Have a nice day'?"  
"You don't have to do that! Just tell people you believe them! I was so anxious when I gave my statement, I almost threw up! That woman you interviewed, she left feeling more alone than before!”  
That takes the wind out of Jon’s sails.  
“I didn’t know you listened to that tape,” he says softly.  
He really had hoped to carry the guilt from that particular interaction on his own.  
“I made the transcript!” Martin snaps.  
"But it matters, “ he says, after a deep breath. ”Telling people your story and having them believe you. I don’t know about you, but opening up about this isn’t exactly easy."

Jon has to agree. Even as a child, he couldn’t imagine anyone believing him about a magic book that made you get eaten by a giant spider. It was the kind of story a child would make up, a tall tale told for attention. Not the sort of thing to bring up with his grandmother, or the concerned teacher who noticed a slip in his grades.There’s really no point in sharing a problem that can’t be solved. But Martin is right, it feels...freeing to finally get the story off his chest.

“So what would you do?” he asks, careful to keep any hint of sarcasm or bitterness out of his voice.  
Martin considers for a moment.  
“Look, we still can send people to counseling, but we don't have to make them feel like they are losing their mind on top of whatever scared them enough to come to us in the first place. Most people think the Magnus Institute is too eager to believe anything anyway, it's not like we'd lose any reputation ”  
“Who says that?”  
“People online.”  
“What people?”  
“I don’t know, people who hang out in paranormal forums. It’s not the point, Jon. I think we really can help people feel better.”

Jon's doubt must be obvious, because Martin suddenly has that look he gets when he’s presenting one of his half-baked ideas for a statement follow-up.

"Maybe the assistants could take the direct statements? If you're not feeling up to it?"  
"No, I should do those. It's my responsibility as head archivist."  
And he still hasn't told them about the strange feeling he gets when recording a real statement. He's not entirely certain the live recording wasn't just his imagination supplementing an eerie atmosphere, but there's no reason to risk it. Some things he really needs to keep to himself. At least for now.  
But Martin looks like he might be willing to fight him on this, so Jon has to find something to keep him away from the real statements.  
"Maybe you could help with the exit interview?" he suggests. "After they've given their statement and we're not recording. Just an informal kind of debrief. Give them a cup of tea and a friendly face, that sort of thing."  
"You want to play good cop bad cop?"  
"Something like that."  
"Well. It's worth a try," Martin concedes.

There's another pause and Jon feels like he should apologize, but he’s not quite sure for what. Being rude? Trying to help? Lying?  
But before he can decide on any of these options, Martin nods at him and leaves.

The mood is sour for the rest of the evening.  
It's not hostile, they're not fighting, and Martin answers when Jon asks him a question.  
But the answers are monosyllabic, and the ease of the last week has evaporated.  
Jon tells himself not to be worried, Martin is not the type to hold a grudge. He is still immensely relieved when the next morning there is a cup of breakfast tea waiting for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading :D
> 
> For those not keeping track of the timeline, here's a little hint: Next chapter we're going to meet some Royalty.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still pretty general and fluffy, but there's talk about both Jon's and Martin's childhoods and the mysterious case of Martin's missing self worth, please procede with caution.

It is exceptionally bad timing that Melanie King,''professional'' ghost hunter shows up when only Jon is there to greet her. With Sasha still out and Tim on a recon mission, Jon has to show his guest to the office, and awkwardly tell her to wait for a minute, while he texts Martin to cut his visit to the library short.  
Maybe the message sounded a bit more urgent than strictly necessary, because Martin arrives out of breath and sans any of the books he was supposed to bring.  
"Whats going on?" Martin asks, as he looks around the room frantically, trying to spot the threat.  
"We have an interview."  
"So you wrote me, and I quote, 'Come back immediately, it's an emergency' because you didn't want to do small talk?"  
"No. Well, a bit, yes. But it's not just that, this uh, this could turn ugly."  
"Why, who is it?"  
"Melanie King," Jon says with enough acidity to corrode steel.  
"And we don't like Melanie King because…?"  
"Because she is just one of the many hacks who spread trite ghost gossip that makes our job dealing with actual facts that much harder."  
"Right. One suggestion: Don't say that to her face. "  
"Noted. I'll be on my very best behavior."  
"I'll get some tea then."

It’s ...not totally unreasonable, as far as statements go. A strange and unpleasant person, behaving very oddly indeed, an escalation that inspired terror, followed by the subject Sarah Baldwin conveniently disappearing.  
Still, he'd probably dismiss it as an attempt to sent the archival staff on a wild goose chase, if it wasn’t for the gently whirring tape recorder, the only equipment that would take the story.

Jon waits another moment to be sure Melanie King is finished before trying out the new approach he’s worked out.  
"Statement ends. Right. First of all, thank you for coming to us. We do believe your story and are highly invested in following up on any leads.”  
It does not go over well. Melanie had seemed uncomfortable before her statement, and whatever calm she found while giving it evaporates the moment he speaks to her.  
"You don't have to be a dick about it," she says, and Jon feels that the conversation is now on a track he doesn't want to be on, but also doesn't know how to exit.  
"I'm not!" he tries. "You say you saw a strange woman stapling her skin on, that's what I believe you saw."  
"Oh, so you'll take the story from every hungover student who wanders in here as fact, but I have actual experience with the paranormal, and suddenly the great Magnus Institute wants to be sceptical?"

Before Jon can answer in what might not be the most productive way, the door is opened by Martin, with some difficulty as he balances a tray with several mugs.

"Hello," he says with a sheepish smile. "Hope I'm not interrupting the recording. Tea is ready, if anyone wants some. Love your episode on tidal ghosts by the way."  
The sudden tilt in energy seems to have caught Melanie off guard.  
She just stares at Martin, who doesn't hesitate to put a mug down in front of her.  
That seems to be enough for her to sit back down. Jon can't really blame her, Martin has a way to steamroll people with kindness that takes a lot of energy to resist.

"No, we were just finished, actually," he says and turns the recorder on the table off. The one hidden in an empty box on the desk should still pick everything up, but Melanie doesn't need to know about that. Jon is not entirely sure why he set it up, aside from a vague feeling that even if it’s not officially archived, the truth should be recorded. He takes his mug and gestures for Martin to have a seat.  
"I am trying to explain to Miss King that we are taking her as serious as we can."  
That earns him a resigned look from Martin.  
"Okay, but when you say it, it comes of as sarcastic." Martin turns towards Melanie.  
"We do actually believe you. He's just bad at sounding sincere."  
Jon opens his mouth, but can't think of a good counter argument. Melanie just looks at them, suspicion flaring back up.  
"Are you messing with me? Is this your idea of a joke?”  
"No! No, we are really, really serious."  
"You don't even know what happened to me."  
"No,” Martin admits, ”but look, if Jon wanted to record on tape, that means you tried the laptop first and it didn't work, right? That's what happens when someone comes in with a true story, we don't know why, but-"  
"Could be lingering EMF," Melanie interrupts, suspicion replaced with contemplation. "But I haven't had that experience when interviewing witnesses."  
“Could it be related to the archives?” Jon asks.” We have a larger collection of paranormal stories than anywhere in the UK.”  
“Because you have no bar of entry.”  
Jon swallows his first, contentious response, and instead focuses on the warmth of the mug in his hand for a moment.  
“Be that as it may, if even one percent of our archived stories are true, that would make for a lot of residual energy. Like drops of water filling a bucket.”

"Or like the Glyndŵr library down in Wrexham. There's no registered incident on site that would explain strong activity, but they have a very spiritually oriented theology track with the library section to match, and there have been a lot of problems with the WiFi and burned out light bulbs. "  
"You're telling me an university doesn't have the funds to renovate their old wiring? I'm truly shocked."  
Melanie smiles triumphantly.  
“But it’s not an old building. It's semi modern, and they redid the wiring a few years ago. It cost a fortune and did not help at all. I haven't been able to get my hands on the contractors' report yet, but I've got someone there who'll be a great source. If I can get them to talk on the record about their long list of complaints."  
Jon finds himself impressed against his will. That's a lot more back up for an off the cuff reference than he expected from a YouTuber.  
That doesn't mean that he's fully convinced though.  
"And what makes you think that this isn't just another case of, how did you put it? Hungover students stumbling in?" he asks, and is elated when Melanie smugly pulls out her phone and starts showing off sources.

Martin disappears at some point during the conversation, but pointedly leaves the door open. In case they flip back to a good old fashioned screaming match, which does not happen, even if the discussion gets a little heated once they get into Polidori vs. Grant regarding the superior system for classifying ghosts. But its the fun kind of heated discussion, and Jon realises that he's really missed fighting tooth and nail about the kind of obscure things that maybe five people in the whole world care about. Melanie King being one of them is a surprise, but not an unwelcome one.

As Melanie leaves a good hour later, she actually waves at Jon and nods in Martin's general direction. Martin waits an extra few seconds after she's out the door before talking.  
"So what, you two are friends now?"  
"That would be a bit premature. But we exchanged numbers, in case of follow up questions from either side. And I will try to get her access to our library, she wants to do some research that actually sounds promising." Martin seems oddly relieved, probably glad that his people skills actually where useful. Well, Jon can't blame him for that.  
"You did really good work there, by the way," he says, newly aware of how much effort it takes to sound sincere. "De-escalated in under a minute.”  
“Thanks. I’ve got, well I just like it when people get along,” Martin stammers.  
He looks more uncomfortable taking a genuine compliment than during any reprimand.  
Jon decides to just let it go.  
"I think celebrations are in order. The system works."  
"We still have some instant ramen. Or a microwave lasagna," Martin says.  
Noting the sour look on Jon's face, he adds: "Or we could order a pizza?"  
But Jon just had a brilliant idea, that will not only get him good food, but also get him out of an obligation he'd rather dodge.  
"Actually, Melanie also gave me the number of a follow-up contact, Georgina Barker. Would you mind calling her and confirming some of the details? I already made a list of questions, you just have to go through them.”  
"Sure. What are you going to do?"  
"I am going shopping."

The limitations of cooking in a break room, namely the lack of anything to actually cook on, means he is making a salad.  
But the teakettle is enough to make vegetable stock, together with a large mixing bowl (remarkably difficult to buy in Central London) that means he can put together a nice couscous salad.  
Once the grains are soaking, it’s mostly just cutting vegetables, so Jon is happy to accept Martin’s inevitable offer to help. Screwing that up should be impossible, Jon thinks as he sweeps his cilantro in a bowl and looks up just in time to intervene before Martin can chop his own fingers off while trying to cut a tomato.  
"You'd think you'd never done this before," Jon says as he demonstrates the proper grip.  
"I don't think I have?"  
"Seriously?"  
"Well, my mum doesn't like to cook. My dad and I used to bake sometimes, but they split up when I was eight, so…I can crack a mean egg into a cake mix, but that's about it. How about you? You learned cooking from your parents?"  
"Grandmother," Jon corrects. "She thought a young man should be able to both sustain himself, as well as entertain guests. It's a point of pride from that side of the family. Allegedly my father wooed my mother with a four course dinner."  
"Allegedly?"  
"My grandmother said so, but it’s not like I have a way of fact-checking."  
Martin just looks at him quizzically, and Jon realises that he’s missing some key information.  
"You didn't listen to my statement then."  
"I wasn't sure you'd want me to."  
That hadn’t even occurred to Jon. He read Tim’s statement without hesitation, and assumed the others would do the same. That's probably not great.

"Well, you can. It’s not exactly relevant, but I thought you knew. My parents both died when I was very young. Just bad luck twice over. It happens."  
"Oh. Sorry."  
Jon gives the usual answer. "Thank you, but it's…well it was a long time ago, and I don't really remember either of them. So it's not like I felt like missing out."

And that's true enough for casual conversation. His grandmother was a very efficient, practical woman, who sought solutions to problems and didn't value dwelling on tragedies one couldn't change. A few family photos aside, there weren't any mementos for him to cling to. Just a postcard they sent back to their home from a visit to his grandmother in Bournemouth. Jon has no memory of it, he would have been barely two, but his name is on it, in bright orange block letters, next to two names that don't mean half as much to him as they should. He either was a really smart kid, or a parent held his hand to draw the letters, and he can never decide which version he prefers to be true.

"Change of topic" he declares. "Do you actually like Ghost Hunt UK, or was that a ruse?"  
Martin, thankfully, accepts the new topic. "I know they're not exactly up to academic standards, but I think it's kind of cool. They're really accessible, and they don't make things up as far as I can tell, even if the editing is a bit…"  
“Claptrap?"  
“Dramatic. But they have to get financed somehow. Can you imagine if we had to rely on Youtube ad money for funding?"  
Jon can not, but the concept is a nice and lighthearted level of absurd.  
"Now there's an idea. Join us for a tour through London's least organized archive."  
"Five things not to do in Artefact Storage," Martin suggests.  
"Cooking in the office with Jonathan Sims?" Jon asks as he gives the grains a final stir before adding the chopped vegetables.  
"I'd watch that."  
"Thank you. It is reassuring that if we scare our esteemed donors off, we can always branch out into crowd funding. Try this."

Martin's face lights up at the first forkful, and after that they just talk about recipes, spices, and the range of homecooked food their living situation would allow.

Jon makes an effort to keep the conversation light, so it doesn't feel entirely natural, but after a tense week, it feels like a confirmation that they are still friends. Although he's not entirely certain when he started to think of Martin Blackwood as a friend.

*

The guilt spreads like a mold. It's always there, of course, it sits right at the bottom of his lungs, but sometimes Martin manages to not think about it for days.

But he does listen to Jon's statement, then reads Tim's, after making sure that's alright, and that just reminds him that he should be grateful for the family he's got left. It's not perfect, but what family is?

So he begins to draft another letter to his mother, which has become even more difficult than usual during the last month.  
It's not like he can tell her what's actually going on in his life, it would just unnecessarily scare her. He feels a pang of sympathy for Jon and his now abandoned policy of fake ignorance, and that's a good reminder to scratch out 'my boss made dinner'.  
It doesn't help that there’s no real privacy in the Institute. If it isn’t Tim or Sasha occasionally looking over his shoulder during work hours, it’s someone just passing by him in the library, or worst of all, Jon and his seemingly boundless curiosity about what the people around him are reading, writing, or working on. Which is fine when Martin is reading something sufficiently interesting, or working on something important, but doesn’t give him the peace of mind to really focus on essentially lying to his mum. He doesn't want to get into an argument about hypocrisy, not when things between them are going surprisingly well again. 

He’d hoped to have some time to himself in the storage room, but of course now Jon doesn’t spent the technically free sunday in his office, instead he’s pinning pieces of paper on a corkboard he got from god knows where.

"Jon, what is this?" Martin asks, and Jon finches and looks caught for just a moment.  
"I'm trying to find commonalities between statements," he says just a smidge defensively, and pins another note down.  
Martin takes a step closer to study the board.  
The notes are all in Jon's handwriting, just keywords linked by yarn around their pins. Martin follows 'Meat?' over to 'Skin' which is linked to 'Hospital', and under each there's a collections of names and dates. It’s all very coherent, if one knows the context. But the visual is still vaguely unsettling.  
"Okay, that's it. You need to go outside."  
"Why?"  
"You made a red-string wall of madness in your bedroom."  
"No, I didn't!" Jon protests. "My strings are blue."  
There is that look again, the one Martin now recognizes as Jon joking, but he refuses to be charmed.  
"Jon, look. You're this close to publishing a really weird conspiracy manifesto about aliens or something, and as the person who shares a room with you I am concerned."

"I have no intention of publishing my findings. I doubt I could find any peer to review them. Besides, I don't see you going out. "  
"I'm about to, actually," Martin lies, and demonstrative looks around before grabbing his jacket. Might as well, if he can't have any time alone at the institute.

"Really? Where to?" Jon asks, and Martin says the first thing that comes to mind.  
"Tate Modern. It's a bit of a walk, but the weather is nice, and I haven't been in a while." And it's free, he manages not to say out loud.  
"Hm." Jon nods, and turns back to his creepy arts and crafts. After a moment, he sighs.  
"That does sound better. I'll get my coat."  
"What?"  
"You're right. I'm just spinning in circles here, it's not been helpful for hours. Going outside will do me good."  
Martin tries to think of a way to say that he'd like to be alone for once actually, without sounding rude or like he doesn't want Jon specifically around.  
He needs time alone, time to just think and be, without worrying that he's in the way or doing something wrong.  
But it is good to get Jon outside, isn't it? And they're both adults who can go their own way in a big space.  
"Sure," he says. "I'll meet you at the elevator.”

He loses sight of Jon a couple rooms in. As predicted, Jon rushes through the rooms, glancing at the paintings and instillations and failing to hide disdain.  
Martin wonders what kind of art Jon would enjoy. Maybe he's more of a renaissance kinda guy, or into ancient mosaics. 

He wanders around and visits some old favorites, and ends in the turbine hall, where the temporary exhibit has changed since his last visit. The majority of the massive room is taken up by a single object.  
From the outside it looks like a smooth black rectangle, made from some kind of metallic alloy, but there is a thick cloth curtain in one side that allows people to enter the structure.  
Inside the walls and ceiling are covered in dim, pinprick sized lights, that shift through the color spectrum in slow waves.  
Once the couple taking incessant selfies leaves giggling and clinging to each other, Martin has the place to himself and just loses himself in the atmosphere. The change always starts with a single light and spreads out in patterns, but the movement is always different.  
It's quite relaxing and Martin only realizes he zoned out into some sort of meditative state when Jon is standing right in front of him.

"Martin, are you feeling alright?" He eyes their surroundings with such obvious suspicion that Martin has to laugh.  
"The art isn't cursed, don't worry. I just got distracted."  
"Alright then. What does it mean?" Jon asks, as if they are on a field trip and Martin had prepared a presentation.  
"I'm not sure," Martin says carefully. "What do you think it means?"  
Jon turns around to give the installation another critical look, just as the light switches to hues of orange and yellow that make it look like he's standing in a sunset, and suddenly Martin's stupid heart is beating a lot faster.

It had been one thing to crush on some random coworker back in research, and when that man turned out to be Martin's new boss, well… He has borrowed enough self-help books from the library to know he has some kind of _thing_ with authority figures. He doesn't want to think about that too much, but it meant that as far as crushes go, Jon was safe. Just a stand in, really, for whatever stupid hopeless daydream Martin was pursuing at the time.  
Not like anything could happen there, especially once it became clear that Jon didn't particularly like him. Of course, as his mother had told him repeatedly growing up, once people really know each other, they tend to like each other less and less.That has certainly been true with how other people feel about Martin, but he can't help but think about how all the trivial ways he's got to know Jon lately have only made him more faceted, interesting, real. Then there's the less than trivial fact that Jon has been straight up lying to everyone for years, but after listening to his statement, Martin can't actually blame him for that. That kind of traumatic event would mess anyone up, Jon turned out suprisingly nice all things considered.

Meanwhile Jon has come to his cynical conclusion.  
"I think it means the artist had some leftover Christmas lights and too much time on their hands. What do you think it's about?"  
"I believe it's about changing as a person," Martin says without hesitation.  
"Even if you stand in the exact same spot, your surroundings will shift and that will reflect on you. Once the change is complete, you'll be completely different, but still you. And then it's time for the enxt change." He points to the spot on the ceiling where a small patch of vivid green is spreading.  
Jon looks as taken aback as Martin feels, he can't remember the last time he was able to relate his thoughts in such clear words.  
"And how do you know that's correct?" Jon asks.  
"I don't, but that's the thing about art, isn't it? There's not really a right or wrong interpretation, you don't have to really know what the artist meant, as long as it makes you feel something."  
Jon does not look satisfied.  
"And it is pretty to look at,” Martin adds. “Anyway, we should probably go, before they throw us out."  
"I doubt the security here is particularly strict," Jon says, but heads for the exit.  
"You would be surprised," Martin mutters, and realizes too late that Jon is still within earshot. He doesn't say anything, but once they're back out in the larger room, he turns towards Martin clearly expecting and explanation.

"So one time I got a bit lost," Martin says quickly."And then I lost track of time, and when security caught up with me, they thought I was trying to stay in on purpose."  
"That sounds like an innocent mistake," Jon says, because of course now he's being all understanding and forgiving of innocent mistakes, leaving Martin to decide on whether to keep quiet or share the embarrassing truth.  
"Twice," he says as he resigns to his fate. "That happened to me twice. Same guard found me, too. If it happens again they'll probably ban me for life."  
"Hm, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm officially banned from the London zoo, it's not like they put your picture up at the entrance."  
It takes a moment for that to sink in, and then another for Martin to truly comprehend the information.  
"Sorry, wait, hold up. How did you get banned from the Zoo? What did you do?"  
For a moment, Jon looks like he seriously considers just bolting.  
"It doesn't- it's not- same as you, actually. I overstayed on accident and someone took it the wrong way. Let's go."

Martin follows, but privately decides that maybe he should practice his research skills on some unoffical investigations. Just to hone his skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, and apologies to the Welsh. I did like 5 minutes of research and then decided that this is an alternate universe where everything I say is true. I'm sure in reality your libraries are unhaunted and your WiFi is lovely. 
> 
> The tate modern is a real place that i visited like ten years ago, the specific prentious art is made up.
> 
> Also a biiiiig thanks to everyone who's been commeting, I might be up there with the worlds slowest writers, but seeing that other people care really motivates me to keep doing it :D


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi there. I'm still here, i am still writing this, looks like you are still reading this. Cool.

Another unforseen perk of living where you work: You can no longer be late for the monday morning briefing.  
There is something faintly dystopian about that, Martin thinks, as he settles at his desk to watch Jon go through his plan for the week.

Previously that would only cover the current state of the archive, everyone’s jobs for the week, and a brief complaint about the sloppy work the current research team is doing before passing statements down the line.  
But today, Jon starts fidgeting with his notes, starts and stops several times, and looks so totally uncomfortable, Martin would take over, if he had any less awkward way of leading into their newly added topic.

"And for today's special?" Tim finally asks.  
"As for the current real statements," Jon says exasperated.  
“Sasha, did you have any luck with the Reform Club?”  
“I’ve sent out very polite emails to staff, I’m just waiting for the replies. I could start annoying actual club members, but I don’t know how helpful that would be.”  
“Probably not very,” Jon agrees. “ Anything even remotely scandalous would be kept under wraps. So until we get a reply there, or from the Blue Ridge police department, we should move on.”  
He holds up a file that, for lack of a better contamination protocol, they’ve put inside a large freeze bag.  
“This one is frustrating.”  
That is a charitable term for a statement that they probably need to file under B for Biohazard.  
Of course, Martin had been the one unlucky enough to pull it out of the pile, and his surprised scream when he opened it to a massive bloodstain blotting the paper had brought the rest of the crew running.  
“The unnamed, undead Soldier who cheated Death. I’ll look in the historical aspect and see if anyone remembers the incident. It’ll most likely come down to bothering Elias again. As for the folklore part, does anyone have something useful on playing games with Death?"  
"Like in The Seventh Seal?" Martin asks.  
"Or Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," Tim says.  
"That one is actually a reference to the seventh seal."  
It's petty, but Martin didn't work his way through the library's criterion collection for nothing.  
"Oh sure, but how many people have actually seen that? Aside from horrible nerds like us?"  
The ensuing argument dies when Sasha speaks with a voice so deep it makes the hairs on Martin's neck stand on end.  
"I CAN NEVER REMEMBER HOW THE LITTLE HORSES MOVE."  
She smiles in perfect innocence at their stunned silence, Tim manages to regain his composure first.  
"Ignoring the absolute crime that you have been hiding a pretty decent Christopher Lee impression from me for years-"  
"Thank you."  
"- We really need to have a movie night."  
"What we need is to get to work," Jon interrupts. "If anyone has an idea that's not related to pop culture, let me know. I'll be at the library."  
"Alright boss, but don't dismiss pop culture like that. It is the modern folklore, it reflects and influences how people interpret the world around them. If we find out this story is based on the best time travel franchise of our generation, I will gloat at you.”  
"Exactly," Sasha says as she gathers her laptop and heads for the door. "Like how the Betty and Barney Hill abduction was suspiciously similar to an episode of the Outer Limits. And just for the record, Time Bandits is the superior time travel comedy by far.”  
“Slander!”

But she and Jon leave for the library, which leaves Martin and Tim with the glamorous job of sorting non-statement documents by date, instead of the previously used system of ‘just stick it in a box’.  
It is boring but satisfying in the way jobs that don’t require too much thinking can be.  
Martin lets himself sink into the lull, just check if 12 comes before 10 or after, add it to the right pile, move on.  
It goes on like that for either ten minutes or an hour, Martin isn’t sure but he startles to full attention when the door to the archives slams shut.  
He turns expecting to see Jon or Sasha, or someone with a statement. He's pretty sure research didn't use to just send people directly into the archives.

But it is Melanie King. Again.  
"Melanie, what are you doing here?" He says with a smile that takes a lot of effort.  
"I'm looking for Jon."  
"Why?"  
"He said you got something about a soldier. We're going over some of my research on war ghosts."  
"Really? We just had our briefing and he didn't mention you."  
She blinks at him for a moment and then turns to Tim,  
“Are you guys being jerks again? I thought that bit was over.”  
"Nah, he's just crabby because I came in early today and woke him up."  
"Tim!"  
"And I told you I was very sorry."  
While that is true, and Martin did not enjoy seeing a silhouette in the door window first thing in the morning, it is not information anyone but Martim, Tim, and the freshly awoken by panicked yelling Jon needed to be aware of.  
But the damage is done. Melanie is looking him up and down, and the fresh pair of eyes makes him uncomfortably aware that he didn’t really bother with his hair today, and that he is standing in the archive in socks.

"Sorry, do you mean you sleep here?"  
"I don't see how that is any of your business."  
The haughty tone clearly was a miscalculation, her gaze immediately hardens, she takes a deep breath, and Martin prepares himself for the verbal reckoning.

"Jon's at the library," Tim intercedes."He said he'd meet you there."  
"First time I'm hearing about it," Melanie grumbles. She shoots Martin another glare, and he pretends to be extremely engrossed in census data from 1985. But as he glances up a few minutes later Tim is just staring at him.  
"What the hell was that?"  
"I just don't think we need anyone else around."  
"She seems cool though. We could use more cool people."  
Figures. Just when Martin is finally getting along with everyone, even close to an actual friendship with Jon of all people, someone who just has to seem cool comes along and just hangs out, without having to put in the effort.

"I didn't think that telling her the truth would mean she'd be around all the time. She's all wrapped up in ghost business that doesn't even have anything to do with us! Is that going to happen with everyone who comes here from now on? Jon is paranoid enough as it is, have you seen his theory board?"  
"His what now?"  
Martin seizes the deflection.  
"He has a corkboard with notes and stuff and it really creeps me out."  
So now, Melanie forgotten, he has to show Tim where Jon has propped the board up on a couple of filing boxes. Tim actually whistles.  
"Wow."  
"I know."  
"This is amateur hour. Hold up."  
And before Martin can say anything, Tim roots in his desks, and comes back with a folder that's stuffed to the point of bursting.  
"Now this is four years of research! And please note that I actually cite all my sources, unlike some Archivists who shall not be named. So this," he indicates the first two-thirds of the folder, "was before I finally managed to get some therapy. Took me about half a year."  
"That is… a lot," Martin tries for diplomacy.  
"Yeah, I was not in a healthy place. Couldn't stay at work, lost a lot of friends, for a bit I just couldn't care about anything else. Therapy helped, and then I saw the Institute was hiring. Figured it'd be a more productive outlet for my obsession.  
Not that we do much. But it's a lot easier to get classified files now. And it turns out people are much more eager to spill their secrets if they think you're a ghost-obsessed weirdo."  
"So it worked out well for everyone!" Martin says before he can think, and Tims face falls  
"That's not how I would put it."  
"No, sorry, that's not what i meant. But it's nice working with you, and you're actually good at your job."  
"I am fantastic at my job," Tim interrupts and slaps the folder for emphasis.  
"Right. I guess what I'm trying to say is that of all the weird places you could have ended up working at, I'm glad it's here. And that you don't have to go through this alone anymore."  
"Thanks, man. Really."  
“Maybe we could all work on it together!”  
Tim doesn't look particularly enthusiastic.  
"You did hear how getting obsessed with this messed me up, right?"  
“Okay, but if we do it together, we can split the load. And you already did all this research! It’d be a shame to waste it.”  
"I'll think about it."  
“Cool.”  
Just then, Martin realizes the potential consequences of his actions.  
“Just maybe not today? Jon has been sleeping too little already."  
"Cut me in on that home-cooked lunch program you got going and it's a deal."  
The easy smile is back, and it only seems slightly forced.  
"It's not a… Fine. There are sandwiches in the fridge."  
"Excellent.”

*  
Jon is not popular with the library staff. He knows this, and he knows that their dislike is justified. He has, on occasion, forgotten to return a book he was using for research. And before the promotion to head archivist with a private office, he had a habit of monopolizing workstations for several days, which led to tense conversations when people filed away his references.  
But as the newly promoted head archivist, they can’t exactly turn him away, and they have to accept his promise that he’ll put the ludicrously small tables back to where they stood apart, once he and Sasha are done with their work.  
They’ve barely set things up and gotten the first few books when Melanie makes her great entrance.  
She heads straight for them, unconcerned by anything in her way. A student pivots on the spot lest they end up in her path.

"Tim told me to meet you here. Could have said something." She drops her bag on the empty chair with a thud that makes people’s heads swivel in their direction.  
“Sorry, I must have forgotten. Uhm. Are you all right?”  
“Yeah, I’m just peachy. Had a little tiff with Martin.”  
That does not sound right.  
“How did you manage that?”  
“I didn’t manage anything, I just went looking for you and he was a dick about it.”  
"Are you sure it was our Martin?" Sasha asks.  
"Unless there's someone else who apparently lives down there."  
"Not as far as I know," Jon says. "Except for me, of course."  
The confusion on her face is blatant enough for him to realize that he quite forgot to share that little fact.  
"Why are you living at work?"  
“Can you keep it down, please? This is a library. Shush.”  
"Don't you shush me! What is wrong with you people?"  
"Nothing, nothing, but please don’t broadcast it. Look, will you please sit down and I promise I’ll explain.”  
She does, and once the library staff has stopped glaring in their direction, Jon speaks.  
“Do you know who Jane Prentiss is?"  
"No."  
"Well, neither do we." He allows himself a second of smug satisfaction at her annoyed face before continuing. "But she is host to a hive of parasites that are likely supernatural in origin. And she has been stalking Martin and me. She knows where we live, so for the time being, we’re sleeping in the nice and secure document storage room. It’s the closest thing to a high-security room we got”  
"That sounds really made up."  
"You don't have to believe me, but that is my reason. I can show you our files if you want to see for yourself. "  
"Sure. Sounds like an urban legend in the making." Melanie hesitates a moment before turning to Sasha, probably mistaking her for the voice of reason.  
“But this is real?”  
"Oh yes. One of her victims tried to kill me."  
"Huh. Alright. This place is a lot more hands-on than I thought."

"It is not an encouraged approach," Elias says from behind Jon.  
“I prefer my staff to not be in mortal danger, generally speaking.”  
Jon did not notice him coming in. He would have noticed if Elias was in the library the whole time, wouldn’t he?

“Good morning, Jon. Sasha. And you must be Melanie King. Jon personally made me sign off on the visitor pass, but he didn’t actually say what exactly you are researching.”  
“I’m working on War Ghosts. There’s a lot of research in the harmless variants.”  
“And you are focusing on…”  
“The more violent variants. That’s all I can share right now. It’s a work in progress.”  
“That is fair. Just make sure you credit us when you publish.  
You wouldn't be interested in working for the Institute, by any chance? We had some restructuring lately and could really benefit from someone with your expertise."

"As I said, I have my own projects,” Melanie says, sounding cautious.  
"Which would benefit greatly from increased access to the Institute. The visitor's pass can only get you so far. But of course, the decision is entirely up to you. Consider it a standing offer."  
That seems like a good point to actually enter the conversation.

“I wanted to ask-” Jon starts.  
“I’m looking into the fire system, please be patient, Jon.”  
“Thank you, but it’s not about that. We’re trying to verify an old statement, and as far as I can tell you are the only one who worked here when it was given.”  
“Intriguing. Details?"  
“This would have been in 1972, in June. I'm waiting for an analysis result, but it looks like there is a lot of blood on the file.”  
“Hmmm. Let’s see, I would have been… a filing clerk by then, wouldn’t I? How time flies.  
Well, there was an incident that summer that we gossiped about for a week or two. Someone came in from the street and cut their finger off, or something close to that. At least that’s the version of events I remember. I’m sorry I can't be of more help, but it was quite a long time ago and I wasn’t actually there for the main event.”  
“Did the Institute not have security cameras back then?” Sasha asks.  
“No. Those are a recent addition. CCTV was up and coming around then, but my predecessor didn’t exactly keep up with technology. I’m sure you can relate.” He smiles at Jon.  
“Yes.”

"Best of luck in your research, and please do consider my offer, Miss King."  
And just as suddenly as he appeared, Elias exits without so much as a glance back.

"Well,” Sasha says, staring after him. ”That was unhelpful as always.”  
“At least we know that Nathaniel Thorpe was real enough to be gossiped about in the Institute. But Melanie, you should consider taking the job. Research is fun, if you're -"  
"A big nerd."  
Jon just gestures at their laden tables and Melanie sighs.  
"How is working here? Would I have to move in?"  
"No, that’s just the ones the Hive of Worms wants to assimilate."  
“Right. About that, what kind of research have you been doing exactly? I might be able to help.”  
"If you have any idea that we haven't thought of in the last month, be my guest."  
Melanie smirks.  
"Oh, I’m sure you have great ideas. But it's not like people enjoy talking to you lot."  
"And why would they talk to you instead?".  
"A chance to show up the Magnus Institute? I'll have to beat them back with a stick."  
"Can't say I love that," Jon says, ignoring Sasha's badly hidden giggle, "but if it gets us the extra information I'll take it."

"And you are sure your sources would talk to you?" Sasha asks.  
“Why wouldn’t they?” Jon asks.  
Melanie looks uncomfortable.  
“Well, you obviously heard about the thing with the train.”  
“What train?”  
"I guess it's better if you hear it from me. I went looking for another ghost in the train graveyard of Rotherham.  
It's odd but there are these places that Ghost Hunters just will not go to, and I wanted to find out why. Turns out it's because you might get stabbed by a ghost.”  
She pulls up her left sleeve, exposing a heavily bandaged forearm, and grins at Jon and Sasha’s shocked expressions.  
“It’s fine. It’s mostly fine. I’m going to have a nasty scar, but it didn’t damage anything permanent. Except for my reputation. Someone filmed me as I was loaded into the ambulance. I might have been screaming about ghosts trying to kill me.”  
Sasha nods sagely.  
“Ghost Train Knife Blood Eye.”  
“What?” Jon asks.  
“That’s the meme,” Melanie groans. “I’m a meme. And it’s not even funny. Don’t you dare google it. So now the colleagues who didn’t abandon me once I started to look just a little deeper don’t want to work with me. But I’ve also gotten a lot of emails from people nobody else listens to. I can work with that.”

Jon recognizes that look, although usually, he is the one giving it. It's an open challenge to anyone who'd dare not take her seriously. Proceed with caution.  
"Well, I'm glad you made it out mostly intact."  
She visibly relaxes and he decides to push his luck just a bit further.  
“Melanie, would you mind giving another statement about this? For our records.”  
"Not right now. It felt weird."  
"How so?"  
He had of course seen that Naomi Herne hadn’t enjoyed giving her statement, but he had chalked that up to regular reliving of trauma with the added bonus of having to talk to Jonathan Sims, Skeptical Extraordinaire.  
"Just. Weird. Like I was reading a script someone else wrote for me. I don't want to do it again any time soon, but I'll let you know if something comes up in my next investigation."  
"Might I interest you into what we in the professional academic circles call 'The buddy system'? "  
"You are really obnoxious sometimes, do you know that?"  
"So I've been told. But I'm serious. It sounds like you’re operating without a team now, and if you're going in without any support, you could get hurt."  
"I can take care of myself."  
That too sounds awfully familiar.  
"I'm sure you can. And I promise that's not meant to sound sarcastic. Let me know if you have something in mind, okay? Just so somebody knows where you are. I’d hate for you to end up as another mystery."  
"I have a few things in mind, actually. I'll send you the list. Now can we get to work?"

In the end, they don't end up doing much follow up on Nathaniel Thorpe. The blood on the statement form is real, but without a more concrete line of inquiry, Jon can't justify ordering a DNA analysis. It would be neat information to have, but he'd prefer to have a good reason for the expense.

Melanie doesn’t have any useful links either but promises to keep an eye out for anything that would at least fit into the folklore aspect. She also hasn’t gotten anything in her grab bag of emails that could relate to Jane Prentis, so that’s another dead end. At least she is making progress on her ghost trains and train ghosts.

So instead of working on statements, the team starts picking apart Tim's research.  
As it turn out, there is an abundance of supernatural stories surrounding the works of Robert Smirke. But it is difficult to figure out which are real, which the people telling them thought are real, and which are just plain old superstition.  
At least with the statements, they have the neat little binary of what does and doesn’t record on the laptop.  
For this freeform research, they have to conscript one of the few empty walls in the archive. Tim graciously takes his research folder apart, and together with an extra large map of London that Sasha aquired from god knows where, they have a pretty good visual aid in tracking the most likely suspects.  
Green little pins for cases confrírmed either by statements or Tim’s really thourough research, yellow for further information needed, and red for the obvious fakes. They also started with just plain white for locations of Smirke's architecture without any incidents, but those quickly disappeared.

Jon adds another green pin to the already impressive collection at the British Museum and links it to the corresponding notecard on the side of the map with perfectly reasonable blue thread. He was a bit worried at first about damaging the walls, but as Tim pointed out, they have to be sturdy to carry the weight of the entire Institute including the library.  
He turns to the assistants.  
“So it would seem that even if we discount the scared schoolchildren, high strung history students, and jetlagged tourists, it would appear that the British Museum has quite the high concentration of...Martin do you need help?"  
Martin stops flailing his hands and grimaces at him. Or, no not at him, something behind him. Jon turns around to coemface to face with Elias.

He instinctively steps in front of the wall, but he is painfully aware that their project has grown far too elaborate to simply hide. “I wasn’t expecting you.”  
Elias smiles.  
“I just came by to tell you that the rennovation of the sprinkler system is underway. If all goes well, they’ll only have to work on the reservoir and you shouldn’t even notice it.  
I'm still not fully convinced this is truly necessary, but you made a good point. It is safer for the archives, pest infestation, or not.  
And I approved your order for the extra fire extinguisher. They should be delivered in a few days."  
Jon nods, and manages to say: "Good," before Elias steps around him and takes in their project.  
"Now that is impressive. What exactly are you looking for?"  
"The connection of Robert Smirke to supernatural occurrences in the greater London area," Jon says reluctantly. The assistants have clustered off to the side, and he suddenly feels like he’s in front of a classroom, being tested on a subject he did not prepare for.

Elias doesn't react immediately, he just studies the map and traces a few lines to their entries.  
"I see. You are of course welcome to use the Institute’s resources for personal projects, but I would greatly prefer it if you did so on your own time. It's not like that would limit your access, given your current residency."  
It's not meant to be a threat, Jon knows that. Elias is not a bad boss, all things considered. He wouldn't throw them out for a subpar work week.

“We might have gotten a bit over-enthusiastic with this. You know how it is when you make a connection.”  
"Just don’t let it become a habit. I am looking forward to the modernization of the Archives and would hate to see you fall behind schedule. Now go and record the statement of," he picks up a file, seemingly at random, "David Laylow, there's a good archivist."  
Jon mechanically takes the file, this one actually is ready to be recorded. He was getting around to it before he got distracted by Greek Revival architecture.  
"Right. I'll get it done right now. Tim, Sasha, I'll see you on Monday, have a nice weekend."

*  
Martin watches Jon trudge off, like a schoolboy being sent to detention.  
He tries very hard to fade into the background as Elias turns to the assistants.  
“I have to say, I am impressed with your dedication, but also a bit concerned. You are aware the Institute closes at five?”  
“We were just finishing up,” Sasha says.  
“Of course. But those of you who plan to actually go home should probably do so in a timely maner. Enjoy the weekend.”  
He exits beofre anyone of them can reply with a plite phrase, so they are left to just kinda of mill around in stunned silence.

"So. Have you guys got any plans for the weekend?" Martin asks.  
“Martin,” Tim says with a look of concern.  
“You can not politely pretend that that wasn’t supremely creepy.”  
"So what? Elias is a bit weird, but he's our boss."  
“It’s not just that,” Sasha says.  
"I did some digging, and something is definitely odd. There’s no online presence for starters. Not even a Facebook profile. No family, as far as I can find. And judging by his university performance, he was not interested in academia at all. He barely slacked through uni, started working the high turnover job in artefact storage, and a few years later, Bamm, head of the Institute.”  
"So he got his life together, that happens."  
And maybe that explains why he hired Martin. Maybe he wanted to give someone the same kind of life-changing opportunity he apparently got.  
It doesn't seem terribly in character, but sometimes people are simply bad at openly showing kindness.  
Especially when they are in high responsibility, high-stress jobs.

“Maybe.” Sasha is tapping her chin again, which means she'll probably come back with Elias’ complete family history in a week.  
“Just don’t break and enter on your own again, okay?”  
“I’m not making any promises.” But she winks, and Martin chooses to interpret that as reassurance.

“That goes for you too, Tim.”  
“Can’t do anything fun around here.”  
“I’m not kidding. You’re the only one who hasn’t been attacked by the worms yet.”  
"Please don’t say ‘yet’. Would it make you feel better if I told you I'm just driving to Brighton and meeting up with some old friends?"  
"It would, actually. I don’t think Jane Prentiss travels."  
"Exactly my thinking. And honestly, I need to get out of London for a bit." He turns to Sasha.  
"Do you want to join me?"  
"Can't, I'm really busy."  
“What are you doing?”  
“Stuff.”  
"Care to elaborate on that?"  
"No."  
"Alright then, keep your secrets. Martin, do you want anything from Brighton? Or tag along? You can dramatically stare out at the ocean and contemplate the ephemeral nature of clouds.”

"Pass. Once Jon is finished we're getting something to eat."  
"Fine. More dramatic staring for me."

They leave Martin to it and about half an hour later, Jon emerges from the office, looking slightly nauseous.  
"How was the statement?"  
"Visceral. Very informative about the logistics of an abattoir."  
Martin decides he does not want to know.  
"So do you want to go to a vegan place, or…"  
"No. No, I am thinking kebap."

Thought turns to action, and Martin watches as Jon eats his doner kebap without much apparent pleasure, but with a grim determination.  
"Who exactly are you trying to prove something to?" he asks.  
"Just myself, I think,” Jon says between bites.  
"Isn't that just being stubborn?"  
Jon shrugs and keeps chewing.  
It could be a nice quiet meal, leading into a nice quiet evening, but -

"Why don't you like Melanie?" Jon asks, and Martin barely manages to keep his face neutral.  
"What makes you think that?"  
"She told me so."  
Oh, so Melanie is a snitch. That's not very cool of her.  
"She must have gotten the wrong impression. Or maybe I just had a grumpy face that day."

Martin takes a long sip of his drink, and winces at the sweetness.  
"Oh this will absolutely rot my teeth."  
"What?"  
"It's really over-sugared. You know, my mum wouldn't allow me to have fizzy drinks, I used to be a bit bitter about that, now I'm kind of thankful."  
He glances at Jon, he can practically see the gears turning. But the downside of getting more familiar with each other is that now stubbornness will beat out professional detached politeness.  
"Don't deflect like that. I thought we were past this.”  
“Past what?”  
“Pretending that everything is fine, followed by hours of seething. I told you all about my childhood trauma, you tell me why you don’t like Melanie.”  
That does not seem like a totally equal trade. But if the alternative is Jon prying ino Martin’s background...

"It’s not that I don’t like her. But she doesn’t need to be at the Institute every day, does she? She doesn’t work there, and it’s not like she’s qualified.”  
"Maybe not academically, but she is very experienced and actually does very thorough research. "  
"I guess. " Martin picks at his falafel. “I actually was having a bad day. I woke up thinking we were about to die, after all. Probably wasn’t completely fair to her.”  
That’s about as far as he’s willing to budge. Jon seems to accept it.

"Oh. Alright then. Are you feeling better?”  
“Sure. Tim made me look at Bill and Ted clips all week, you got rid of your horrible conspiracy board, and I’m having the sugar drink that twelve year old me would have killed for. On average, my week has been great.”  
“And you don’t mind that we now have a conspiracy wall?”  
“At least we’re no longer clichee.”  
“Well, if you can’t go home, you have to go big.”  
“Heh. Cute”  
Jon finishes off his kebap in silence, and Martin dares to hope that the topic is over and done. But of course it isn’t.  
“I might join Melanie for an investigation. Maybe you could come along? Built some bridges?”  
"Is that safe?"  
"She promised a day trip at most, we should be back well before sunset."  
Melanie doesn't seem to have the best self-preservation instincts, and the last time Jon got scared, he just froze to the spot. Them teaming up could be disastrous.  
"Sure. I'd love to," Martin lies.  
"Great. I’ll tell you the details as soon as I get them.”  
“Cool.”  
Martin will just have to practice his best fake smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :D
> 
> The Archive crew falling into research holes was inspired by me falling into research holes. Did you know that robert smirke was instrumental in bringing concrete foundations to the brits, after the romans stopped doing that?  
> And that brighton has a toy museum? Well now you do


	7. Chapter 7

The Archive feels empty on Saturdays without Tim, Sasha, or the occasional members from other departments, so Jon forgoes the Head Archivists office to share the common workspace with Martin.

He's hoping to make up for lost time, prove to Elias that their independent investigation won't interfere with their archival duties.   
They get through statements at a good pace, the pile they have chosen to tackle consists of easy cases, with most of the research done for once. 

After their lunch break, Martin starts to make phone calls, so Jon takes a stack of statements and retreats to his office to continue recording.   
The first two are easy enough, just your standard ghost stories by statement givers who had been a little too eager to try out the exciting new adjectives they learned from Lovecraft. At least they're fun to read out loud. 

Jon freezes when he reads the name on the third.   
He doesn't bother trying the laptop, just scrambles the tape recorder into place and begins. 

"Statement of Jane Prentiss, regarding a wasps’ nest in her attic. Original statement given February 23rd, 2014. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London. Statement begins.”

Jon stumbles out of his office twenty minutes later, disoriented and squinting at the lights.  
Martin looks up from his pile of notes and startles. So Jon looks as unsettled as he feels. 

"Jon, what are you-" Martin asks, already out of his chair and walking towards him, but Jon waves him away.  
He doesn't want to explain himself, he's not sure he can.   
But Martin needs to know about the statement. Jon needs to focus on important information. Just for a moment.   
"Prentiss Statement. Found it. Don't read it, it's, it's a bad one. Listen to the tape if you have to, but there's nothing in there. Nothing that we didn't know. Waste of time. I'm going to lie down."

He doesn't lie down so much as curl up on his side. The wall is solid against his back, and if he concentrates he can keep his breathing even. 

He hears the door open but keeps his eyes shut. It doesn't matter who is coming.   
"Hey, are you awake?"   
Right. Couldn't be anyone but Martin. Nobody else is in the Archives.   
Jon manages to think enough to make a noncommittal noise.   
"I listened to the tape. Are you okay?"   
He's clearly not. What a stupid question.   
Shuffling footsteps. Getting closer.   
"I...itch," Jon forces out, a phrase that isn't his and goes putrid in his mouth. The other words follow unbidden.  
"I know it's not real, it can't be, but I can feel them burrowing under my skin. I need to scratch, but if I start I won't stop until I've reached bone and then I will keep going."  
He can hear a sharp intake of breath, Martin must be close now.   
"Hey, okay. Talk to me."   
Jon shakes his head. He's not sure if he can talk without it coming out as more stolen words.   
"Okay. Do you want to be alone?"   
No. Alone is worse. Alone with nothing but his squirming thoughts and that urge to peel off his skin and find the intruders and get them out-

"I... Jon, is it okay if I sit down ?" Martin interrupts his downward spiral.   
That sounds manageable, and after Jon nods his assent, the sound of fabric rustling tells him Martin has settled close. 

"Jon, can you give me your hands? This looks painful."   
It is, Jon realizes. His fists are balled tightly, the nails digging deep into his palms.   
He can't relax them, but he can push them towards Martin.   
Even scraping of his skin over the fabric of the cot sends a crawling chill down his spine.   
Martin's hands settle on his, slow and deliberate. Jon fears that he'll try to pry his fists open, an intrusion that will be too much and not enough.   
But Martin leaves his hands where they are and starts talking in a low voice. 

"Okay, I'll keep talking and you let me know if things get worse. Or, or better! Maybe it will get better. So. Here I go talking about something. Oh! I called the retirement home from the Sanderson statement, they were pretty helpful. They had to dig through a few older records, and we know what that's like, so - "  
Jon doesn't quite follow, but he listens to Martin's voice going on and on in a gentle drone and focuses on the tangible feeling of Martin's hands over his.   
They're real and warm, and that's enough of an anchor to pull Jon out of his thoughts of fear and the need to scratch. Bit by bit he manages to unfurl his hands until they lie flat. 

"Alright," he says after how much time is impossible to say. "I think I'm good now."   
He opens his eyes and flinches at the raw concern on Martin's face, he hadn't realized their faces were this close. 

Martin immediately pulls back, or at least as far away as the cramped space allows.   
"Sorry, I didn't know what else to do."   
"It's quite alright," Jon says as he sits up and untangles himself, careful not to kick Martin as he stretches his legs out. 

But Martin looks downright guilty, which isn't right at all.   
"Look, I know you don't like being touched, I didn't forget, I just couldn't think of another way to help, I would -" 

"It's really not a problem. Jon interrupts him."My problem with physical contact is not that clear cut. It varies from day to day, and it is frustratingly inconsistent. I tried to make a chart once, it was not conclusive at all. But uh, this was helpful, thank you."   
It's not the first time he's had to explain that to someone, and he really should stop hoping that it will ever be the last. Maybe he could get a card printed. Manual for the overly complicated prick. 

But he'd rather think of anything else and casts for a different topic.   
"How did listening to the tape make you feel?"  
"I don't know. Concerned? A bit creeped out."  
"But not watched?"   
Martin, bless him, considers before answering.  
"No, no I don't think so. Should I?"   
"That's good. I was worried."   
His smile is returned for only a second before Martin looks concerned once more. 

"Do you feel watched when recording?"   
Jon takes too long to come up with a believable lie, and Martin's face turns determined.   
"If the statements make you feel like this, you shouldn't do them at all!" 

"They don't! This was different. Usually, they make me uncomfortable, but that's to be expected when vicariously going through someone else's trauma.   
Maybe this one is worse because the other statements are from victims."  
"Isn't Prentiss a victim as well?"   
"I'm not sure. She made a choice. She was so desperate to be part of something, anything, even that thing in her attic seemed like an option."   
"You think she's dead?"   
Jon hadn't realized he’d been thinking about it like that. But Martin caught on.  
"I hope so. The alternatives are that she is conscious but unable to act, or she is doing this out of her own free will. I don't know which is more unsettling."   
"Yikes."  
Jon chuckles.  
"Yes. Yikes." 

"Right, uh, I should probably get back to work. Hey, we finally got an email from the Usher Foundation."  
He walks towards the door, and for a second Jon feels the visceral urge to lunge after him. 

"Oh?" he manages to say instead."Anything interesting?"   
"Not really. They're swamped with Bigfoot sightings, and couldn't find anything werewolf-ish right away. But they said they'd keep an eye out."  
"Do we believe in Bigfoot?"   
"I don't. That is a well-documented hoax. It'd be like someone coming to us and claiming the Loch Ness Monster ate their dog."   
"Hm. Alright, fair enough."   
"A Kelpie on the other hand… "   
"Martin," Jon says sharply, ready to argue until he sees Martin's grin.   
"Got you," Martin says with highly inappropriate glee.   
"I'll make tea first, do you want some?"   
"Yes, thank you. The Darjeeling, if you still have some."   
It’ll be good to have something warm in his hands.

*  
Martin watches Jon more closely for the rest of the day.   
He doesn't seem exactly well, but he does research, he eats, and he goes to bed at a reasonable time and given the circumstances that's not too bad. 

It's when Jon agrees to take Sunday off that Martin's worries grow, but if Jon won't bring up yesterday's… emotionally charged moment, Martin won't either. 

And as long as Jon doesn’t try to record another statement, there’s no reason for Martin to intervene, to his immense relief.  
That feels like a discussion they should have as a group. 

He figures they could try for a little self-indulgence, but any plans for a self-care day are shattered when Jon's phone rings.   
He barely greets Melanie before clearly being informed of some kind of plan. 

"What, right now? No, no, we can be there in fifteen minutes. See you there."   
He hangs up and turns to Martin.   
"Melanie wants to investigate the Brightling observatory."  
"I thought she was doing war stuff? Soldiers and hospitals and all that."  
"She is. But I mentioned that we are looking into Smirke, and apparently the current owners of a building by him contacted her months ago about strange occurrences in their home."   
"Like what?"   
"She didn't say."

Martin suppresses a sigh. Instead, he searches for the Brightling Observatory on google maps and finds it to be located almost two hours worth of driving south.  
"Jon, there is no way we can make that in fifteen minutes."   
"We're meeting at the station. She's bringing the car."

The car turns out to be a ford fiesta of indiscernible colour.   
"I thought you had a van?" Jon asks Melanie, who has graciously rolled down her window to greet them.   
"No, Toni had a van. I don't know what she is using it for now, but it's not our show. Some fair-weather friends I got. No smoking in the car."   
While Jon gets rid of his cigarette, Martin manages to squeeze into the backseat, next to the towering stack of heavy-duty plastic cases.   
It's uncomfortable but less so than riding shotgun with Melanie. 

He calls Tim and tells him what they’re up to. One more route planning session later they’ve agreed to meet up at the observatory, which turns out to be conveniently halfway between Brighton and London. Sasha doesn’t respond to his texts, but she did say she was busy.

By the time Martin is done organizing, Jon and Melanie are talking about some author Martin has never heard of, so he closes his eyes and pretends to nod off.

He is rustled awake by a particularly heavy bump in the road.   
The scenery has changed to wide-open pastures, tiny roads, and equally tiny villages dotted over hills. It could be a lovely place for a hike if the weather wasn't so dreary.   
"Good morning," Jon calls from the front seat. "And good timing, we're almost there."  
Martin mumbles something even he doesn’t understand. The timing would have been better if he had gotten a few minutes to gather himself.

They pull up to the disappointingly bland building ten minutes later.   
Martin had expected something a little more opulent, really put the goth in gothic revival, but the house looks like a couple of brick boxes stacked together, partly obscured from view by high trees. The only interesting feature is the metal dome that sits at the top and must house the actual observatory part.

They are greeted by a man on the older side of middle-aged who introduces himself as Mr.Grinling-but-call-me-Russel.

Martin knows the type. They’re not uncommon at the institute, aging affluent hippies who left the commune but kept the loose clothes, crystal jewelry, and open mind for anything supernatural. They tend to have strong opinions about nuclear power and whole-wheat but are otherwise harmless.

Getting Melanie’s equipment out of the car proves to be a bit of a struggle. The stuff isn’t even that heavy, but neither Melanie nor Jon seem willing to let the other carry more, which somehow translates to Martin carrying the bulk of them.

Russel guides them through the house, and to Martin's surprise, they move past the obligatory grande staircase.   
"Aren't we heading for the dome?" he asks.   
"No, no, I never had problems up there. It's the east wing that gives me trouble. Ah, here we are. I wanted to use it for meditation," he says as he opens the door, "but whenever I cleared my mind in this room I got the strangest feeling of unease."

It's another boxy room, with blank walls and no furniture, safe for a man-high brass telescope.  
The view is impressive though.   
The eastern wall of the room is made of large glass panels set in heavy iron frames, and there are no plants on this side of the building, which allows for a clear view quite far into the distance. They must be at the highest point of the area, Martin wonders if you'd see the sea on a clear day. 

“This looks a bit small?” Melanie says and nods towards the telescope.  
“Oh, that’s not the proper telescope. That was in the dome. They took out all the big instruments when the house was remodeled to live in, but this isn’t suited for the serious astronomy they did before that. My grandfather must have thought this was pretty.”  
“It is,“ Martin agrees. He carefully puts his stack of boxes down and examines the telescope.  
It’s completely made out of brass and the end that’s pointing out into the sky is just above Martin’s head.  
It doesn’t look too different from the fake vintage stuff that gets peddled at markets, but he can’t spot any clumsy soldering seams and the patina is probably real.

The legs of the tripod disappear into the tiled floor and Martin would bet that they extend all the way into the foundation.  
Martin has never dabbled in astronomy, but that seems wrong. What’s the point of having a portable telescope, if you confine it to one precise spot?

"If it came with the building, do you know when this place was built?" he asks. He's looked it up, but he has a suspicion that Russel will be happy to tell him, and he breaks into a smile of someone who finally has an audience to share their very niche information with.

"Built in 1818 by none other than John ‘Mad Jack’ Fuller-”  
But the lecture is cut short by a series of shrill beeps and Jon’s embarrassed apology as he checks his phone.   
“It’s Tim. Looks like he got a bit lost. Why don't you two set up and I'll wave him down at the crossroads?"  
He's vanished before Martin can object, and Russel follows, so suddenly Martin is left alone with Melanie.  
Right. This is probably the best chance to rebuild a little goodwill.  
If Melanie is going to be around they need to be on at least polite footing.  
And it's not as if she's the one who lives in the archives and is there when someone needs help. Martin has no reason at all to feel threatened.  
“So,” he begins. Like you would any normal conversation between peers. “What’s our first step?”  
Melanie doesn’t answer. In fact, she pulls out her phone and starts typing.  
“Melanie?”  
“I heard you,” she says, still focused on her phone. ”I just don’t have time to deal with whatever hot and cold mind games you want to play, so stay out of my way and let me work.”  
He should have known Melanie wouldn't play by 'let's pretend this awkward thing never happened' rules.

“Okay, I’m sorry I was rude the last time we met. I had a rough weekend.”  
“Not my problem.”

God, it's like pushing a pull door. Different strategy then. Tim bought his concerns as purely professional, didn't he? That might work. 

"Look, mostly I was worried you’d get Jon involved in some sort of side project, like you two would start another youtube channel together or something like that. I mean, that would be cool, I’d watch it, but we already have so much work to do in the archives, we’re just starting to really look into Smirke, you know? And Jon already works way too much, I don’t think it’d be good if he started something unrelated. He can be really stubborn and that’s good for a researcher, but I don’t think he knows how to stop going sometimes, and he doesn’t ask for help even when he needs it, and-”

He stops abruptly as he realizes Melanie is now staring at him and he's gotten the tiniest bit off track.   
The look she’s giving him isn’t disgusted per se, but it’s definitely in the neighbourhood.

"Fine,” she says with a curt nod.  
"Really?" That was almost too easy.   
"Don't project your issues on me and I'll be… professional."   
Martin's issues are not the kind to project, but he doesn't want to start a fresh argument right now. He brings out the big smile instead.  
"Great!" So what do we start with?”  
“Do you have any training with this kind of equipment?”  
“I do not.”  
"Then we don't do anything. You stand back and watch and let me handle the expensive tools." 

Rude but fair.  
Martin steps back and lets her do her work, ignoring the siren song of the multiple danger label on one of the cases. 

At least until Melanie starts unpacking tech that looks like a mix of very serious science tools and colourful plastic toys.  
"What are those anyway?" Martin asks.  
"Thermographic camera, light spectrometer, emf-reader, and Geiger counter,” Melanie counts off and Martin can’t hold back   
"Sure, why not use the spirit box while we're at it."  
Melanie snorts."Please, we’re not trying to up engagement."   
"Wait, that's why you use those?"   
"Yeah. You give viewers something to comment about, what they think they heard, maybe they'll even argue with each other. It helps the algorithm. I haven't heard of a single case where a ghost used the radio."   
"So in the episode with the Elizabethan coal miners...?"  
"I did not write that one," Melanie says emphatically. “But people felt oh so clever pointing out that Elizabethans wouldn’t even know what a radio is, so we got a ton of comments.”  
How mercenary. Martin silently vows to never tell Melanie his youtube handle. 

Melanie fiddles with what looks like a fancy barcode scanner but that Martin recognizes from the show as an infrared camera.   
She frowns a bit, points it at different sections of the room, at Martin, and herself, before pointing down and tapping the floor.

"The floor is too cold."  
"Wow. Really getting your money’s worth. Sorry, sorry," he adds with hands raised in apology.   
To no one's surprise, Melanie has a weapons-grade death glare. 

She starts patting down the floor, Martin leaves her to it and inspects the telescope. Looking through the lens reveals nothing, even after messing with the eyepiece a bit, but Martin isn’t sure whether to blame his own ineptitude or the overcast sky. 

But as he pulls away, movement on the telescope catches his eye. 

“Hey there,” he murmurs to the little creature perching right on the joining point of the eyepiece and whatever the big tube bit is called.   
“What?” Melanie asks, and Martin startles embarrassed.   
“No, I’m talking to the- there’s a spider on the telescope.”  
“So?”  
“I’ll take it outside. Jon doesn’t like spiders.” He ignores Melanie's grumbled response and carefully cups the spider in his hands.   
The windows don't look like they open, so Martin takes it to a side door that leads to a storage closet.   
"Okay, you just chill in here for a couple of hours, and then you are free to do whatever it is you do. Deal?"   
The spider disappears under the vacuum and Martin takes that as agreement

A sudden crack makes him whirl around to Melanie who holds a floor tile in her hands with a look of destructive delight on her face.   
"Found the source for the cold."  
She puts the tile to the side, takes the small torch from her belt, and peers into the hole she just revealed.   
"There's something in there."   
"Maybe they have thongs or a cherry picker, or-" but Melanie is already belly down on the floor, one arm in the hole down to her shoulder.   
"Don't bother, I can reach it."   
Martin manages to keep his concerns silent, but he gets ready to act in case Melanie starts screaming.  
But she pulls her arm out with a triumphant grunt, and gets back up, turning her prize over in her hands. 

"Looks like an archeologist trowel? And the owner had very clear views of property, there's a name engraved on the handle. Looks Like a J, or maybe an I, Burton? Doesn’t sound familiar, but shouldn’t be hard to…” she trails off.

"Melanie?"   
She doesn't reply or give any indication that she even heard him. She keeps staring at the thing in her hands. 

Martin makes to walk to her but freezes as his brain processes what his eyes are seeing.

The large window isn't showing a typical grey afternoon sky. It is showing the endless void of the deepest space.

But it doesn’t look like the night sky or even deep space photography.  
The stars are too far away from each other, and the void between them somehow feels more substantial. He feels untethered, weightless, like there is no ground beneath his feet.  
Even as Martin tries to find a familiar constellation, anything to remind him of what he thought was his place in the universe, he knows with absolute certainty that these stars are long dead, that their light is all that remains, the universe is empty and he is alone.

Only he isn't. He still can see Melanie standing in front of the Telescope. The telescope, which is also still here. 

"Melanie, the lense. You need to break it. Break it."   
He repeats it again and again until finally, Melanie looks up and focuses on him.   
She moves slowly, clearly straining with effort, but no matter how vast and uncaring the universe may be, it is no match for Melanie's fury fueled determination.   
Her arm freezes half raised and for a moment Martin is sure they both are lost and will stay like this forever.  
But Melanie lets out a scream and brings her arm down and stabs the point of the trovel right into the eyepiece of the telescope, and the following cacophony must be close to what the big bang sounded like.

Martin drops to his knees as gravity returns with a vengeance.

The next thing he knows Tim and Jon are in front of him, both looking terribly concerned. Although the effect is somewhat muddled by Tim’s eyewateringly yellow shirt, he clearly did not dress for work today.  
Martin’s eyes are drawn from that to Jon, who’s waving a hand in front of Martin’s eyes.  
"Martin? Martin, can you hear me? Are you hurt?“  
"I'm fine," Martin says, and aside from the pain shooting up from his knees, that's true. 

He could get back up, but Jon is very close right now, and if Martin moves the moment will end. 

Tim has no such concerns. He unceremoniously pulls Martin up by the shoulders and doesn't let go. 

"Martin," he says, his face and tone serious.   
"You obviously did something very stupid just now, and once I'm sure you're all right you'll get a stern talking to. Are you all right ?"   
"Uhhh. No?" Martin says, and Tim gives him a small but relieved smile.   
"Nice try. I'll save it for the ride home. As for you," he says as he turns towards Melanie, who avoided falling by holding on to the telescope with her free hand.  
The other is still holding the trowel and she waves it at Tim as he comes closer.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” she growls and only realizes she is brandishing a sharp object as he backs away with his hands raised.  
“Sorry. That wasn’t intended. But if you try and lecture me I will hurt you with this...broken antique.”  
She holds the trowel out for inspection. Its blade is warped and blistered, and a large crack runs through the wooden handle. 

"I guess the telescope broke too," Martin adds. Melanie checks.   
"Yupp, that's shattered all right. How did you know that would work?" she demands.   
"It just made sense? I don't know, Space wanted to eat us, the ground wanted to eat us, we fed them to each other instead."

"That almost of makes sense,” Jon says, although he doesn’t sound like he believes it. “But it doesn’t explain this.” He reaches out and brushes something off Martin’s shoulder. Martin copies the motion and realizes there’s a fine layer of dirt covering his body. He looks at Melanie who rubs her fingers together and examines the particles.

"What is that?" she asks, even as she pushes some of the dirt into a clear plastic bag from her supplies.  
"Stardust," Martin replies without thinking.   
Melanie rolls her eyes and turns towards Russel, who is staring at their little group wide-eyed, clearly not used to this level of shenanigans.  
"You wouldn't happen to have a security camera set up in here?"   
"No. We can't get them working inside the house.”

The ensuing discussion is hard to follow.   
Everyone talks at the same time, Tim keeps needling their host about illegal renovations, Melanie wants to set up more tech, Jon has some idea about floorplans, and Martin's eye is repeatedly drawn to the windows. The view doesn't change from the dull sky and pallid grass, but he can't quite focus until he turns his back to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This turned out loooooooooong. And guess what. Next chapter? Also long.  
> Was supposed to be one chapter full of juicy parallels but uhhh I'm not dropping an 8k chapter on people. You probably have stuff to do
> 
> Also, completely genuine, if anyone has a good entry-level documentary into astronomy, hmu.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaand here's the second part of what used to be 1 chapter xD

Melanie insists on driving, and Jon tries hard not to constantly glance over to make sure she's alright.  
He still catches how tightly she grips the wheel.  
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks cautiously.  
“Not particularly,” Melanie replies without hesitation. But Jon feels he knows Melanie well enough by now to wait. It shouldn't take long to-  
“It's just so frustrating!” she starts. “I’ve spent years researching this stuff! Years of going after flimsy leads of grey ladies and vague presences. And the moment, the moment I don’t have a camera ready, or a team, or really anyone who could confirm my story, I almost get killed two times in a row! There’s zero evidence, and no one will ever believe me!”

Jon tries for a joke. “I’ll peer review you, if you want.”  
“I'm not worried about my academic reputation. I don't give a shit about that!”  
“That much is obvious from your show, but maybe-”  
The abrupt halt of the car stops him. He turns to Melanie, expecting her to look as shocked as he feels, but she is looking at him with fury.  
“Out,” she says flatly.  
“Melanie, come on, I wasn’t-”  
“Get out of my car.”  
There’s nothing he can say that doesn’t feel like it would end in violence, so Jon scrambles out of the car, and barely manages to shut the door before Melanie drives off at a dangerous speed.  
Jon watches the car, halfway expecting it to stop any moment now, but it disappears behind the next curve in the road and suddenly he’s all alone in the middle of nowhere. He spends a good minute debating out whether to call Tim or a cab, only to realise his phone is in his jacket and his jacket is still in the car.  
And it doesn’t look like there’s another car coming any time soon. They didn't make it too far, maybe he can head back to the observatory and use their phone.

So Jon starts walking. His shoes aren’t made for it, and neither is the road, and the oppressive summer humidity makes him sweat after just a few minutes.

He curses Melanie, just a little bit, before the guilt can catch up to him. Of course, she has every right to be offended, Jon would be too. Had been too, he reminds himself, any time he’d explain his new job to people and they’d ask why he’d want to waste his time playing Ghostbusters.  
It doesn’t make the situation any less inconvenient.

At least it isn’t raining, he thinks, and naturally, the first drops of a summer shower come down seconds later.  
He makes it to the nearest tree, but it proves to be inadequate cover from the sudden heavy downpour.

There’s a car coming. Jon considers sticking his thumb out, but that would be an embarrassing cliche. But would it be more embarrassing than just standing around and letting the rain drench him?  
He compromises by holding one arm up in a sort of half-wave and trying for a sheepish smile and only realises when the car stops in front of him, that it is in fact, Melanie.  
For a moment Jon is frozen until an impatient wave from Melanie compels him back into the car.  
He wants to make a joke, ‘what took you so long?’ or maybe ‘thank god, my previous driver was just atrocious’ but he quite wisely settles for: “Thanks”.  
Melanie doesn’t look at him.”Even I’m not mean enough to leave you out in the rain. With your delicate indoor constitution, you'll probably catch consumption. I don’t want to have to explain that to the rest of the basement-dwellers. Besides, I still need access to your library.”  
“I doubt that would be a problem. If you tell them you abandoned me in the wilderness the librarians would give you VIP access.”  
“Interesting. That leaves Martin, and I'm pretty sure I can take him.”  
“Good luck. He sleeps with a knife.”  
Melanie scoffs and starts driving. She doesn’t look like she wants to strangle him anymore, so that’s an improvement.  
“I am sorry, by the way. That was uncalled for.”  
“Yeah.”  
He'll take that as an apology accepted and decides to push his luck  
“And I am sorry for getting you involved in this, I shouldn’t have-” that’s as far as he gets before Melanie cuts him off with a sharp laugh.  
"Oh, will you get over yourself, you condescending prick! I’ve been getting into danger way before I ever met you. ‘Getting me involved’, the nerve.”  
She sounds more annoyed than angry, and she's right. If he goes by the oldest Video on her youtube channel, technically she has been a professional in the supernatural investigation than him.

“No, you’re right. Sorry. In that case, I guess I’m glad I got myself involved? It was good you didn’t go in alone today, right?”  
“Sure. Martin nagged me right into focus. And….”  
“Yes?”  
“And I suppose it is good that I don’t have to drive home alone for once. And that I can talk to someone who won’t rather believe I’m crazy than that there’s something awful in this world.”  
“So maybe it would be even better to talk about what happened? Just a suggestion,” he quickly adds under Melanie’s death-glare. She turns back to the road and speaks after a few seconds of silence.  
“It was pressure. Pushing in from all sides, keeping me still. It took a lot to move, like I was pushing against water or earth. And I hated it, and I knew I had to do something, but I also knew it wouldn’t matter because there are things in the universe that are so much bigger and beyond our influence.”  
“Like stars?” Jon suggests.  
“I guess," she says, without conviction.  
"More like. When you first start learning how the world works, and how much of it isn't a single person being a problem, it's these systems that won't change no matter how many individuals you deal with.  
What made you think about stars?"  
Jon decides to let the obvious change of topic slide. It's clear that Melanie is not enjoying this conversation.  
“It would track with what Martin said. Stars, space, the unfathomable age of the universe.”  
“I didn’t see any stars. I didn’t even see Martin. I could hear him, but it was muffled.”  
“Huh. Weird.”  
“Wow, you’re right, this is so helpful! I’m simply blessed to have you here!”  
“You are very welcome.”  
He doesn’t react to Melanie’s very rude gesture, and she doesn’t throw him out of the car again, so they’re good. They’re probably good. Possibly even friends. Which reminds him:  
“Did uh. Did he talk to you? Martin, I mean. Before all of that happened.”  
"This isn’t knitting circle, Jon. We’re not swapping gossip.”  
"No. No, of course not."  
He drums his fingers on the dashboard. He looks out of the window and counts the cows. He checks his phone. He speaks, against better knowledge.  
“But you mentioned your fair-weather friends, and Martin is very much not that.”

“I don't need pity friends either. I'm not completely alone, you know. Andy is on a break, but we're still roommates. And if I could get something to convince the rest… I just wish we'd gotten some footage today, that might have been enough to get the team back together.”  
“You really think so?”  
“No,” Melanie sighs. “They’re scared, not ignorant. And they’re probably making the smart decision. Smart people don't seek out things that want to kill them.”  
“What does that make us?”  
“Too stubborn for our own good.”  
Jon can't really argue with that. But it is astonishing that the archive team stuck around, given the events and revelations of the past months."Maybe you should join the Institute after all. Research is full of skeptics, but everyone in the archive knows and we're still here.”  
“Yeah, I’m not that desperate just yet. Besides, I really don’t want to be beholden to your creepy boss.”  
"Elias isn't that creepy."  
“Then your threshold is too high. Either way, no thank you. I still have enough savings left for some independent research. And a couple leads. And even one or two friends who aren’t quarantining at their work. I have a friend up in Scotland who might have something about the Lanncraig Massacre.”  
“Never heard of it.”

One illuminating and stomach-turning elaboration later, Melanie drops Jon off in front of the Institute. Thankfully the rain has stopped by then.  
He waves after her and checks his phone. Martin is still on the way, apparently Tim thought he knew a shortcut.

Jon is about to ask for any dinner preferences, when movement in front of the Institute catches his eye.  
Of course the damn worms are back.  
The grubs are writhing on the pavement, maybe the rain draws them out like earthworms. Horrible things that want to do nothing more than burrow down into his skin and devour him from the inside out.  
They wave their black-tipped heads around in blind and animated search for prey, but are no match for Jon’s soles.  
It takes him a few minutes to get them all, and by then he is slightly out of breath but feels cathartic. He’ll get some extra salt on the next shopping trip, see how the squirmy little bastards like it.

He nudges the remains into the flowerbeds, better to have them as fertilizer than baked into the pavement. So close to the plants, the smell of the damp earth is overwhelming.  
Maybe Jon should text Melanie, ask if she smelled anything during her encounter. He gets lost trying to configure that question in a way that won’t sound sarcastic and startles when he hears his name. 

“Jon, what are you doing?” Martin asks from behind him. Jon turns, and gets only a glimpse of Tim’s car before it disappears around the corner. Martin is standing on the sidewalk, and Jon wonders if Tim even stopped to let him out, or just slowed down a bit. But Martin looks fine, safe for the layer of dirt that still covers him head to toe.

“Nothing,” Jon says and quickly moves towards the doors. Martin had a rough enough day, he doesn't need to know how many turned up. "Just measuring the marigolds."  
Martin gives him a quizzical look, but follows him up the stairs.  
"You know, I always thought those were a weird choice for the Institute."  
"How so? They're pretty."  
"I guess, but marigolds stand for despair and grief. Not exactly a comforting way to start someone's experience with us."  
Jon squints back at the little flecks of orange and yellow, but can’t find anything particularly ominous about them.  
"How do you know that?"  
"I uh. I read a lot of poetry. Flower language is kind of a staple."  
Jon manages to keep his face neutral.  
"I see. Well, I doubt Elias speaks flower. How are you feeling?"  
"Fine, I think." Martin says, and makes a show off brushing off some dust before entering the building. "But really could do with a shower. Tim complained that I got dirt all over the rental."  
"And how is Tim?”  
“Still a bit angry,” Martin admits. “But it's because he cares. He said something about putting us through basic survival training. Did you know he was a scout?"  
"No. But that sounds about right."  
“He’s bringing in material tomorrow, so that’ll be a nice easy start into the week.”  
Jon laughs as he closes the door behind them. "What a weekend."  
"Yeah. Not exactly relaxing, was it? I might call in sick tomorrow."  
"Think you can get away with that?"  
Martin grins at him."Oh sure. My boss is a total pushover. Really gullible. He believes just about anything you tell him."  
While Jon doesn’t appreciate the sentiment, it is good to see Martin smile, and just as Jon has that thought, the smile falls away.  
Jon turns to see Elias, whose smile is nothing but professional.  
"Jon, a word?"

Does Elias ever leave the Institute, Jon wonders, fully aware of the hypocrisy. The office is neat as always, nothing to indicate that Elias has to deal with some time-sensitive issue that would warrant coming in on a Sunday.  
“Did you know that Marigolds are portents of doom and gloom?" Jon blurts out without thinking.  
Elias fixes him with a long stare that makes Jon immediately regret sharing that tidbit of information.  
“Jon, are you feeling alright?”  
“It’s been a long day. We went on a trip with Melanie King. She does Ghost Hunt UK, you met her in the library once. You offered her a job, actually" he adds, it can't hurt to remind Elias that he deems Melanie a worthy colleague.  
But Elias doesn’t react. “And that was such a harrowing experience? You certainly seemed agitated during your little stampede.”  
“How do you know that?” Jon asks, trying not to sound like a child caught red-handed.  
In reply, Elias turns his computer screen to face Jon, and Jon is treated to a view of the institute’s entrance from two angles, as well as several shots inside the building. He recognizes the library entrance, but to his relief can’t see anything that looks like the archives.  
“Were you spying on me ?”  
“Of course not. Usually, the security footage is stored and only reviewed when there's a good reason to. But I'm waiting for a courier."  
Jon stares into Elias' eyes, tries to figure out if he's lying. But all he realizes is that he owes Melanie an apology. Elias is in fact that creepy.  
Elias turns the screen back and shrugs."While I can't tell you what to do in your own time, I would appreciate it if you at least left a note the next time you go exploring ruins. That way I know where to direct the search party, should something happen. "  
"What makes you think we explored ruins?"  
"Martin dragged a lot of dirt inside."  
Oh. That does look bad, doesn’t it? He’ll have to tell Elias something. Just enough to sound believable, but not enough to finally mark him as paranoid.

“We went to an Observatory. It’s not abandoned or anything, but we had a bit of an encounter,” he says weighing each word carefully.  
“Again?” Elias asks, somehow managing to hit the exact same tone Jon’s Grandmother used when he was dropped off at home by annoyed police.  
"I didn’t. Martin and Melanie did. Martin said something about space, and Melanie sounded like she had been buried alive, but they both got that patina. It’s like they were at opposite ends of the spectrum.”There's something to that, Jon realises as he says it. They both mentioned feeling helpless, but how they got there was vastly different.  
"Anyway," Elias says before Jon can follow that thought any further. "You're certain you didn't experience anything yourself?"  
“I think I would have noticed!"  
“That’s a shame. I don’t need to tell you that having two wildly different accounts of what’s supposed to be the same event is poison for any scientific validity. Having a third witness would have made for a more interesting data-set.”  
That might be technically correct, but it’s not what Jon would have argued. Three witnesses with different accounts is not exactly an improvement.  
But Elias is staring at him in a way that makes Jon swallow any objection.  
Finally, he sighs and leans back. “Jon, I don’t want you to take this as a criticism, but as a bit of advice. There is nothing wrong with delegating the daily tasks of the archives, that is what your assistants are for. But when it comes to subjecting them to potentially traumatic experiences -”  
“That’s not what happened!”  
“Let me finish. You are responsible for your subordinates’ well-being. That is simply part of being in a position of leadership. Regardless of whether you plan for it or not, you need to consider if you are making them do something you wouldn’t be willing to do yourself.”  
“So you’re saying I should throw myself into danger.”  
Elias takes on a pained expression. “That is the exact opposite of what I want, Jon. I’m hoping that you will be more cautious in the future.”

But Jon is suddenly hit with the nauseating realisation that Martin could very well have died today. Just because Jon thought it would be a good idea to drag him along, on some hair-brained investigation that has nothing to do with the Institute.

“You right,” he mumbles, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

*  
Martin tries to put Elias out of his mind. They can’t be in that much trouble, or Elias wouldn’t have singled Jon out.  
He turns the water in the shower as hot as it will go (not nearly enough), and stares at the tiles in front of his face until they disappear in the fog.  
It’s nice to let his mind wander for just a bit, let the worry wash away and simply be.

A heavy knock shakes him out of his ruminations and for one terrifying moment he’s back in his flat with that horrible woman banging on the door again.  
But he isn’t. He’s at the Institute. On a Sunday, in the Archives. Which means the only person banging on the bathroom door should be…  
“Jon?” he calls over the rushing water. “I’ll be out in a minute.”  
“It’s fine. Just checking. You’ve been in there for almost an hour.”  
Martin curses and finally turns the water off. He didn’t actually get around to washing his hair, but screw it. 

He quickly towels off, gets dressed in his casual ensemble, and almost hits Jon in the face with the bathroom door.  
"Christ, Jon! What’s wrong?”  
“Sorry, I just wanted to make sure you’re alright. Elias brought up some good points. I really need to be more responsible as your boss. If something happened because I made you go on and do something stupid, I’d…”  
Jon trails off. He looks absolutely miserable, but Martin finds that his instinctive reaction of compassion is quickly overtaken by anger.  
“God, what a wanker! I mean how condescending can you get? What does he think, that we are just blindly following you off the cliff? We’re adults! Adults who are perfectly capable of making their own horrible decisions!”  
Martin stops his rant, because Jon started smiling.  
“What?”  
“Melanie said the same thing.”  
“There you have it. You are officially overruled, two against one. I pronounce you not guilty.”  
Jon finally relaxes.  
“How does his Honour rule on pizza for dinner?”  
“I’ll allow it,” Martin concedes graciously, and Jon leaves, apparently appeased.

But, as it turns out, not appeased enough. He hovers around Martin for the rest of the evening, in a way Martin finds a little disconcerting. He’s not that obvious with his fretting, is he?  
It would probably be nice to be frettee instead of the fretter for once, if Martin wasn't so desperate for the solitude he needs for the task at hand.  
Because one thought has crystallized over time. Martin needs to write to his mother. But first, he needs to have a perfectly pleasant conversation over pizza, all the while Martin’s conscience is berating him.

He settles into bed early, and Jon just so happens to take his reading material to his cot for once as well. At least they have the room divider. It’s probably as good as Martin is going to get.

So he leans back against the wall, pulls his legs up, balances his notepad on his knees and starts writing.  
_'Hey mum, today I was reminded how big the universe is, and all we have is each other, so I wanted to reach out.'_  
That won't do. No way he can open with that.  
_‘Hi, mum. It's been a while since my last letter, I hope you didn't worry too much.’_  
No, she'll think he's being passive-aggressive again. He strikes it out and starts again.

He's on his ninth draft when Jon calls over. "What are you writing?"  
"Just a letter to my mum. She doesn't like talking on the phone, so I'm keeping in touch the old fashioned way."  
"That's nice. Wait, are you telling her-?"  
"No! No, no, I'm leaving out all the scary stuff."  
He's not sure how she'd react to… Any of this. And the guilt flares up at the sudden thought that he could have died today and left her alone, without even knowing what's really going on.  
Jon of course is unaware of that and keeps talking.  
"Did you tell her to send the mail here? I'm sure Rosie wouldn't mind."  
"Why?"  
"So her replies don't collect at your flat."  
"That's fine. She never answers."  
"Why not?"  
"Because she doesn't like me very much. I mean, she's my mother, she loves me, but only because she has to. And I can't really blame her, I'm not exactly a likable guy." The words are out before he has a chance to think, to make up any other excuse, and Martin can do nothing but sit there in shock at what he just said out loud. Bad hands, he thinks urgently, willing time to go back just a few seconds. My mum has bad hands and writing is difficult for her.  
"I like you, “ Jon says, matter of factly.  
"No, you don't," Martin says, without thinking, why can’t he just stop talking already? "You're stuck with me. You've got Stockholm Syndrome or something."  
"Martin, I - this is ridiculous, I'm coming over."  
Which is also a ridiculous thing to say about stepping around a shelf.  
Jon stops as he makes eye contact with Martin, and Martin realises that he's crying. Of course. If only he had time and space to just be for once, this wouldn't all built up and break out at the worst possible moment, and we wouldn't have to be such a burden. 

Jon dithers for a moment, then settles at the far end of the cot. 

“Alright. I don't know the whole story, but just from my experience, people show affection in different ways. And I'm sure your mother is proud of you, in her way. I mean, if nothing else, you got your master’s degree, that has to count for - “He stops at Martin's strangled sob.  
“Sorry, wrong topic?”  
“I didn't.”  
“ What?”

And then it all just rushes out. How the bills kept piling up, how no entry-level job was paying enough, how he decided to apply to the Magnus Institute because he'd do no actual harm being unqualified there because ghosts weren't real. 

“I wouldn't have lied about being an engineer, or a doctor,” he says staring at his hands, “but I thought everyone just lied about ghosts so it wouldn't matter. And by the time I realised it does matter I'd been here for two years and I thought I'd gotten good enough at it to not do any damage.”

Jon is quiet for a long moment. Martin can't bring himself to look over.  
“But your work isn't that bad.”  
Martin turns to him, incredulous behind his tears and Jon winces.  
“ And that came out way worse than intended. But it's fine. You're doing fine, I would never have thought you didn't get formal training. "  
"You just thought I was stupid and lazy."  
"That's not what I meant."  
"You don't have to be nice to me just because I'm having a breakdown. I know you don't care for my work. Or, or... "  
He manages to stop before he embarrasses himself even further.

"Martin, I have issues with your work, but that's part of being coworkers. You remember Tim's April fools joke?"  
"Yeah, I guess. What has that got to do with-"  
"And I will deny I ever said this, but Sasha has atrocious handwriting. Takes me ages to decipher. And I've been told that, very occasionally, I can be a little bit difficult to get along with."  
Martin can’t help but snort at that.  
"It's hard to believe, I know. But I don't dislike Sasha, or Tim. Or you, for that matter.  
And I didn't behave exactly professionally either. It's no excuse, but I got this promotion and with the archives being what they are I was absolutely overwhelmed, and, well. It felt good to blame someone else for everything that went wrong. Especially when that someone is older and more experienced than me. 

What?" he asks, noticing Martin's flinch.  
"I uh, I think we're actually about the same age? I'm twenty-eight, but having a master’s at twenty would raise questions, so I added some years… "  
Jon sighs."So you're telling me that the only real info on your cv is your name."  
"Well.. ."  
"You're kidding."  
"It's not a lot. It's barely even a lie. I don't actually have a middle name, legally? I was trying something out."  
Jon lets out a laugh that’s clearly borne out of frustration, and Martin fears for his job again.  
"I'm starting to seriously doubt Elias's hiring practices. That really should have come out during a very basic background check, shouldn't it?"  
"I guess. Wait, that's what you're mad about? Not me being a liar, you're just disappointed I got away with it?"  
Jon shrugs. "You had your reasons. And I know you're working hard, so who cares, really. But you'd think something that fundamental would be worth a question or two. We spent hours corroborating small details, and they can't even bother looking at your ID?”

He's got a point, that is certainly odd. But Martin hadn't seen a reason to question a clerical error in his favor. 

"So you're not going to fire me?"  
"Of course not." It's the way Jon says it, as if it's a ridiculous question, that sets Martin off again.  
"Thanks," he gets out between gasps for air. "Sorry. It's been a long day."  
He manages to stop crying, and wipe his face dry, and after a moment he can even speak without his voice breaking.

"I'm sorry about all of this. I'm usually pretty good at having my stupid breakdowns by myself, you know, like an adult. Didn't really plan on a roommate when I scheduled this one."  
He tries to smile, but it doesn't feel right. Jon doesn't look like he believes it either.  
"Martin, I'm not saying this to be dismissive, but I really think you should see a professional. We have all the contacts for statement givers, the counselors, and therapists."  
“Maybe. Maybe once this is done. Right now I wouldn't even know where to start."  
"That's okay too. The good ones help with that. I just want you to know that you don't have to do this alone.” Martin sees the moment the self-awareness kicks in, and suddenly Jon sits up straight and puts on a professional expression.  
"But if you want some privacy I can sleep in the office, that's also -"  
"Don't," Martin says quickly. "I'd feel too guilty to sleep anyway."  
"Okay. I'll be here if you need me."  
"Can you stay for a little bit?"  
"Of course." Jon slumps back.  
They sit in awkward silence for a bit, until Jon speaks with a forced casualness."So. Any other earth-shattering revelations?"  
"Cilantro tastes like soap to me," Martin says without thinking. "I looked it up, it's a genetic thing, for some people it's just like that." And judging by Jon’s face that’s the true betrayal of the evening.  
"I have been cooking with cilantro for weeks, why didn't you say something?"  
"I thought you would stop if I did."  
"Of course I would!" Jon says, offended. "I can substitute! Or find some recipes that don't need it at all. We have options!"  
"Oh." Martin had assumed that that kind of inconvenience would mean they'd go back to microwaving and take-out. It's not that big a deal, he knows. It really shouldn't matter that much. He's really just relieved about finally, finally not worrying about his boss firing him, or suing him. But it also is incredibly nice to state a problem and not get belittled. But Martin won't freak out again, not twice in one night, in front of another person. He's going to have a normal conversation.

“Alright, your turn." Jon looks at him confused so Martin elaborates:  
"You told me your big secret about how the statements make you feel, I told you my big secret about my cv. Now you know about the cilantro, so you owe me one small secret."  
"I don't have secrets."  
"Oh really. How did you get banned from the zoo?" 

He can see Jon debating with himself, but they have entered some sort of zone of truth. Martin, who’d suspected animal rights activism gone wrong had been unable to unearth anything concrete, and when Jon draws a deep breath he can’t help but scoot a little closer in anticipation.

"This was back in uni,” Jon starts. “My then-girlfriend was having a rough week, so we went to the zoo to watch the penguins. And we had a lovely day, but the penguins weren't out. I found a door that wasn't properly locked and…"  
"You broke into the penguin enclosure?"  
"No, no, of course not. We didn't break anything. Just ignored an 'employee only' sign, wandered down a corridor, and found the backstage area. There was still a wall between us and the penguins, but we got a good look at them, and it did cheer Georgie up.  
The zookeeper caught us and got…quite upset. They were right of course, but still. They took our names down, but it's not like we got a mugshot. And they don't do ID checks at the entrance, so I could probably go back."  
It’s not what Martin had expected at all, but it is the kind of reckless behavior that he probably should expect from Jon by now. 

Jon is looking at him with a very serious expression, the one Martin has realised is mostly an affectation.

“Your turn.”  
  
he says. So Martin tells the story of how he accidentally stole a book from the library during a move, and how he still worries that one day the librarians will find him and demand their very late fees. 

After that, Jon tells him about a mishap at the beach, and they end up talking until one in the morning, at which point a yawn from Martin compels Jon to move back over to his side of the room.

As Martin settles into bed proper, he catches sight of his notepad, filled with abandoned drafts.  
He tentatively reaches for that well of guilt and despair, just to check. But all that comes to mind is the unguarded way Jon smiled at him, and he falls asleep with ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading :D


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